AlanF
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Posts posted by AlanF
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Arauna said:
Quote2 hours ago, AlanF said:
Whatever. Still has nothing to do with what the Bible says: "power, strength" in the sense of The Incredible Hulk, NOT "dynamic energy" in the sense of E=mc^2.QuoteWhy the denial?
Because there is no evidence whatsoever that the Bible writers knew a thing about Einstein's equation.
QuoteThe Spirit of God is always active energy.
But not vice versa. You're committing a gross fallacy of logic.
QuoteBut suit yourself......You even argue about a "circle " and turn it into a "ball' just to deflect the truth....
You've got that backwards: it is YOU and Mommy Watchtower who have done that.
Fact: the Hebrew word chuwg used in Isaiah 40 is properly translated "circle" -- not "ball". Thus the claim that Isaiah said the earth is a sphere is demonstrably false.
Quoteanything to avoid acknowledgement of the bible.
Oh the irony!
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Arauna said:
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 9:45 AM, AlanF said:
They all come from the same roots -- something big and strong.QuoteJehovah is that something big and strong!
Which is again irrelevant to showing that Isaiah's words refer to E=mc^2.
QuoteOn 12/12/2020 at 9:37 AM, Srecko Sostar said:
PowerQuoteTrue - power can also refer to a latent power. But the power of God is always active and moving. It gives life and comes from a "living " god..
Again completely irrelevant.
You really have brothers who are scientists? What happened to you?
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Srecko sostar said:
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 9:43 AM, AlanF said:
Far more believe God created the entire universe 6,000 years ago.I am not familiar with idea (that some JW believed) how all Universe is created in 6000 years.
JWs have never believed that -- it's a Young Earth Creationist belief.
QuoteBut remember well how official teachings was changed from: 1 Creation Day is 7000 years, to 1 Creation Day is unknown period.
You're not remembering correctly. The 7,000-year creative day doctrine has never been rescinded. All that the Watchtower Society has done is to begin, in the mid-1980s, to sometimes refer to the length of the creative days as "millennia long". How long is that? Could be 7,000 years. Could be 100 million. Since they never rescinded the belief, the explicit teaching of 7,000-year creative days remains official Watchtower doctrine.
Now, why do you suppose the JW organization switched from "7,000 years" to "millennia"?
QuotePerhaps because of Bible verse how one day before is 1000 years and vice versa, perhaps existed people who believed in 1 Creation Day is 1000 years long.
Well that's a bit confused. The fact is that belief in magical 1,000 and 7,000 year periods goes back at least to 1,000 BCE, to the ancient Persian Zoroastrian religion. Such ideas were later adopted into Judaism during the period of Persian rule. Eventually the notion that the last creative day was 7,000 years long was adopted by Jewish Apocalypticism, and later by Christians. The apocryphal book The Epistle of Barnabas (ca. 100 CE) set all this out explicitly: 6,000 years of human toil in a sinful world, following by 1,000 years of peace in Christ's millennial reign. C. T. Russell was familiar with all this, including the pagan roots of the belief, but he adopted it for Bible Student doctrine anyway.
QuoteThere is, as we have seen, good reason to believe that the days of creation were each 7,000 years long. - https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1970123
In the Bible account, each of the six creative days could have lasted for thousands of years. - https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g201403/untold-story-of-creation/
Yes, these references show how the doctrine was emasculated in the 1980s.
QuotePerhaps it is better to read some science book about how Earth and life on Earth is old, and how Universe is old. :))
Good luck getting JWs to do that.
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Arauna said:
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 9:43 AM, AlanF said:
Respectable" is a relative term.QuoteI have a brother who is a mathematician, a computer programmer, and a analytical chemist specializing in carbon life..... He also was a toxicologist doing research on poisons. I know that he laughs at the dating methods of evolution because of the compensations in the calculations. He is a JW.
The fact that he is a JW is the reason he laughs.
Most proper scientists have no issues with the many dating methods for ancient stuff. The fact that you call them "the dating methods of evolution" again proves your overriding ignorance. Such methods were not invented, nor are they used, merely for the purpose of proving evolution. They were invented to understand the timing of ancient events. Once the methods became available and generally reliable, biologists used them to date events in the evolution of life.
Your comments here are absolute stereotypes of Young-Earth Creationist writings.
Furthermore, dating methods are cross-checked with other methods. When two or more give the same answers, we can be sure that they're both good. When there are discrepancies, investigation is done, and one or both methods are not used until the discrepancies are resolved.
For example, radiocarbon dating has undergone extensive cross-checking with archaeological dating and other methods. The most useful is tree-ring dating -- dendrochronology. This has resulted in a table of corrections to radiocarbon dates for the last 10,000 years, so that there are "radiocarbon years" and "actual years". People use such charts to apply a correction factor to radiocarbon dates.
Cross-checking is also done by methods like the count of varves in old freshwater lakes, and the count of ice layers in the ice of Greenland and Antarctica.
QuoteHe also has a friend who is a analytical chemist with a PHD in water. He is also a JW.
And of course, these guys have written papers debunking dating methods like radiocarbon.
QuoteSo yes there are JWs who are respectable scientists (without the ego which you seem to think is the most important qualification) who believe the bible to be reality.
So what? There are Young-Earth Creationists with Ph.D. degrees who reject science in favor of literal biblical interpretation.
QuoteI also know of of many Geologists who can prove that the 'layers of the earth' gives evidence of a world-wide flood and not evolution because there is too much phenomena that evolution cannot explain - but makes sense when one examines the evidence which is in the layers of the earth.
Sure -- Young-Earth Creationists all.
QuoteThe deposits of the fossils in graveyards which are hundreds of miles long, the mix of the animals in some graveyards, volcanic actions during the flood, movement of the Teutonic plates etc.
All of their "interpretations" -- which are really nothing more than rationalizations about why their Young-Earth views are right -- are seen to be complete nonsense when careful, non-braindead scientists examine them.
"Teutonic plates"??? I love it!
QuoteThere are many scientists who do not have the "herd" mentality. The are not afraid to stand out.
Sure. And such ones believe nonsense like a 6,000-year-old universe.
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Arauna said:
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 9:45 AM, AlanF said:
You're simply too proud and ignorant to understand what I've said.QuoteSmart people can write so that even challenged people can understand what they are trying to say. The better pone understands a subject, the simpler one can explain it.
Of course, and I make every attempt to do that. What you seem to forget -- really, you deliberately ignore -- is that you and most of your fellow JWs make little or no attempt to understand what I and other science expositors say, but only look for ways to sidestep, ignore or forget what is said. Your refusal to look up the material I supplied you days ago on the Cambrian Explosion proves my point.
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Arauna said:
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 9:43 AM, AlanF said:
Far more [Christians] believe God created the entire universe 6,000 years ago.QuoteThis is a blatant lie - Your speak of your own originality as it is you who wish to paint JWs as idiots.
JWs mostly are idiots like you. And again you prove this by having no idea what you're talking about. And you can barely read with comprehension. Do JWs believe the entire universe was created 6,000 years ago? NO!
It is a fact that something like 40% of Americans -- not just fundamentalists and evangelicals, but AMERICANS -- believe in Young-Earth Creationism, i.e., that the entire universe was created by fiat some 6,000 years ago.
As for JW beliefs, I grew up as a JW on the notion of "7,000-year creative days", which meant that life began to be created some 27,000 years ago. That doctrine has never been rescinded; therefore it is current JW doctrine.
You don't think so? Then tell us, please, where in Watchtower literature the "7,000-year" notion was rescinded. How do you think Fred Franz concluded that 1975 was to be the end of 6,000 years of human history?
QuoteEven the silliest people know that the earth and heavens cannot have been created in 6000 years.
Which is why Young-Earth creationists are among the most stupid people today. Or more correctly, brainwashed by their literal-minded religious leaders, just like JWs are misled about all sorts of things.
QuoteHowever, JWs accept that the earth itself was prepared in 6 epochs called "days" and the entire period of preparation of the earth is also called a day.
Yes, and those "epochs" were exactly 7,000 years long. That's why it's easy to prove that JWs believe life was created beginning 27,000 years ago. Go backwards from today: 6,000 years of the 7th day; 7,000 years each for days 6, 5 and 4; that adds up to 27,000 (of course, the "6,000" figure is approximate).
I'll warrant you don't even know how that 7,000-year figure was originally calculated by Russell and later by Fred Franz.
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 9:43 AM, AlanF said:
Like my debunking of the Watchtower's claim that Isaiah wrote about E=mc^2.I have seen very little debunking
Nonsense. The fact is that you've refused to acknowledge the debunkings. You've merely dismissed the debunkings without comment, or by sidestepping what I actually said. Proof? You can point to no post debunking my debunking.
and much more insults any very little science coming from you!
You know almost nothing of science. "Watchtower science" is NOT science. And in case you missed it, when I insult people who deserve to be insulted, I almost always accompany the insults with provable exposition.
QuoteYou have not yet explained the Cambrian explosion......
Of course I did. Must I supply you with the page number of the thread?
QuoteOne layer of earth wherein all the different animals appear fully formed.
That, all by itself, proves that you don't even know what you're arguing against. Where do you get the notion that there is one such layer?
QuoteCan you explain this process?
It requires a book-length treatment. I already gave you the title of best book I'm aware of on this:
The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity, by Douglas Erwin and James Valentine, 2013. Available on Amazon.
QuotePlease debunk this without insults and without exulting in your superior intellect...
You'll have to read the book; I can't do it in a forum like this, as it takes hundreds of pages that include charts and pictures. In the meantime you can learn something from the Wikipedia link I already gave you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion#:~:text=The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian,of most modern metazoan phyla.
Quoteor changing the subject because you usually answer with an unrelated question.
Nonsense. I often give comprehensive answers that include supplementary material germane to the discussion. The fact that ignorant JWs like you don't recognize supplementary material is immaterial.
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 2:06 PM, AlanF said:
to allow quarks to join up into protons and neutrons,first there was energy - then came all the "other" stuff.
So what? It still has nothing to do with Isaiah.
QuoteOn 12/14/2020 at 2:06 PM, AlanF said:
the universe became transparent to light.That is what happened on earth as well.
You know that how? Certainly not from Watchtower speculations going back to C. T. Russell.
QuoteAfter the cooling of the atmosphere the expanse had to be cleared up for the light from the sun to shine through.
You obviously don't even know what the "expanse" was supposed to be. Again, Watchtower speculations are demonstrably wrong.
Look up the definition of "expanse" in a decent Hebrew-English lexicon. You'll find that it comes from the Hebrew raqia, which basically means "something beaten out flat", like a bronze shield that a metal worker beats out to make it flat. The usage in Genesis refers to the sky, which certainly looks to an observer on the ground like a huge blue shield -- something beaten out flat. Raqia does NOT refer to a three dimensional structure like the atmosphere.
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2 minutes ago, Arauna said:
As well as matter forming from the 'controlled' energy.
Whatever. Still has nothing to do with what the Bible says: "power, strength" in the sense of The Incredible Hulk, NOT "dynamic energy" in the sense of E=mc^2.
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8 hours ago, scholar JW said:
Alan de Fool
Absolutely!!
Wrong for we have that strong Cable of Bible Chronology and invisible events do matter.
Correct your answer to the first part and attempt the next half of the question if you dare.
scholar JW
Nothing but already-debunked lies and zero content here; no evidence presented, none needed to dismiss.
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8 hours ago, scholar JW said:
Alan de Fool
No you have not made any original contributions to the study of Chronology only parroting COJ's hypothesis. Scholar should quote the Bible when dealing with you but you are not a believer, Are you?
Not meant to be an argument but a statement.
scholar JW
Nothing but already-debunked lies and zero content here; no evidence presented, none needed to dismiss.
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8 hours ago, scholar JW said:
Alan de Fool
Incorrect. Complete the answer to my question.
Great War was an observable sign of the end of the Gentile Times
Well it certainly commanded the attention of COJ, the scholarly community and yourself in a lather.
The Great War was big enough.
Well just answer and complete the question
scholar JW
Nothing but already-debunked lies and zero content here; no evidence presented, none needed to dismiss.
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9 hours ago, scholar JW said:
Alan de Fool
Why can't you admit that you cannot answer my simple question despite your superior knowledge in every thing. It would appear that the said scholar has you stumped. Your pathetic excuses doesn't cut it with me.
You have been outsmarted and struck dumb!!
You only follow the delusions of COJ
Finally, At last I get an answer. Why did it take you so long? Now all that remains is that you provide the answer for the Gregorian calender for I am incompetent in this regard so I ask in all humility for your assistance in this matter.Are you sure the above is absolutely correct?
I can only just quote scripture but am a master of exegesis.
You are the moron
Providence - Jehovah's direction on matters is everything but you are not a spiritual person so you have no understanding of such matters.
Yes and this was the pivotal date used at that time for Cyrus' Decree which released the Exiles.
So are you saying it was not a problem confronted by scholars of that day?
No, the Climax book made a simple and honest statement.
WT Chronology was clearly adjusted in the mid forties with new research available at that time and became more clearly established in 1963.
Nope, NB Chronology has become widely accepted but the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy remains problematic and as a consequence undermines the credibility of NB chronology.
Wrong dates is simply doing Chronology hence one must rely on the superiority of God's Word and Providence.
I have to use Grammarly which is on my desktop
You have attempted half the question which is incorrect. So repeat and answer the rest of the question and double check your authorities or advisors
scholar JW
Nothing but already-debunked lies and zero content here; no evidence presented, none needed to dismiss.
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ScholarJW Pretendus Braindeadus Maximus said:
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
Point being: if the uninspired J. A. Brown got it right, then the "providentially" inspired Bowen/Barbour/Russell people ought to have gotten it right.The fact that they got it wrong proves that "providence" had nothing to do with their mistakes. And Russell, having claimed to speak for God (he was God's mouthpiece, he said), proved himself a false prophet not only by making false predictions in God's name, but by proclaiming false teachings in God's name, including his claim to speak for God.
. . .
With Chronology no one gets it right in every detail first off
But Providence gets it right!
Quotefor as with all scholarship it is a work in progress. Providence as history shows plays its part too especially with the fulfillment of prophecy interpreted against the background of Bible Chronology now as a strong cable.
The Watchtower has never gotten anything of significance right. And invisible 'events' don't count.
QuoteWhere is my answer to my question?
For the millionth time, see above.
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ScholarJW Pretendus HeadInAssus Maximus said:
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
That's the point, you moron!Exactly, you do not make a point but borrow from others, having nothing original to contribute which proves your ignorance.
LOL! After several hundred years of solid scholarship by professional scholars, you think that telling little old me that I don't make original contributions to such is an argument? You've gone completely off the deep end.
On the other hand, you cannot even manage to quote the Bible, much less tell truthfully what it says. Nor can you truthfully summarize the findings of professional scholars.
All you can do is parrot the squawks of Mommy Watchtower.
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
Actually it's a rehash of current scholarship, just as COJ's writings are. Both COJ and I personally are irrelevant to that large body of competent scholarship.You, like your Mommy, are quite incapable of arguing against some scholarly stance without ridiculous ad hominems. You've learned well.
And we all know how passionately you lie about virtually everything.
. . .
QuoteYou do not read current scholarship for it is a stranger to you only relying on the breadcrumbs of your Poppa, COJ.
You think that is an argument? LOLOLOL!!!
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ScholarJW Pretenshus Assholius Maximus said:
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
Perhaps, but it would be better than being like you -- a pathological liar who falsely claims to stand for God's standards of Truth, Justice and The American Way.You cannot answer a simple question but hide behind insults. You coward11
Already done a few thousand times now.
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
Wrong. One only has to read his works and compare them to real history and events to see thisRead his writings and his chronological expertise is well demonstrated
Yet more gibberish English.
Quoteunlike you who cannot answer a simple question on Chronology. LOL!!!!!
Already done a few thousand times now.
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
And every prediction for the events leading up to 1914 was dead wrong. Everything observable failed.He got the Gentile Times right.
Not an observable event.
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
Ah, yes: the fact that current incompetent Watchtower "scholars" continue with Russell's incompetence proves that Russell was a brilliant scholar. LOL!Scholarship has verified Russell's contribution of this subject.
Wrong. Watchtower writings on chronology are in no way "scholarship". Nor is the nonsense you peddle.
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
Wrong. Everything observable that he predicted for that nonsense failed. Everything! A completely invisible "end of Gentile times" is in no way a fulfillment of a prediction. Should I quote Carl Sagan on that again?He got the Gentile Times right unlike that idiot , your mate Sagan
What was OBSERVABLE about "the Gentile Times"? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. And again, every other observable thing that Russell predicted did not happen.
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
See above. And of course, your game is simple-mindedly transparent. All you're doing is trying to create irrelevant side issues in your silly attempt to sidetrack the theme of this thread.Obfuscation at its finest. You cowardly avoid a simple question which your refusal proves your incompetence.
Now you've descended to the despicable but standard technique of the charlatan -- accusing your opponents of your own sins.
You fool no one, Neil.
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ScholarJW Pretendus Braindeadus Bulshittus Maximus said:
Quote54 minutes ago, AlanF said:
As for your lie that I cannot give such a "calendation", that's nonsense. I repeat: I'm not playing your games. The date is given in Julian years in almost all sources, of which you're well aware. Conversion from Julian to Gregorian dates is trivially accomplished by various means, the simplest being to find a website that does it. There are dozens. Here: https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1227757509QuoteIt is not a lie for I am asking you a simple question,
Which I and others have answered several dozen times now.
You're lying because you know perfectly well that I most certain can answer your questions, but until a few posts ago have refused to play your game. Big difference between "can't" and "won't". Such a complete dipshit!
Quotea relevant question that you refuse or are unable to answer
Answered yet again in a post above.
Quoteyet you pretend to be an expert on the Chronology of Cyrus' 1st year.
Another lie: all I do is tell what scholars say.
QuoteSo give the Julian date if you dare!
Nisan 1 (March 24), 538 BCE through Addaru 29/30 (March 11), 537 BCE, according to Parker & Dubberstein.
Now you look up the Julian to Gregorian converter website I told you about and see if you can plug in the numbers and find your Gregorian date. If you dare. Which you won't.
Quote54 minutes ago, AlanF said:
Bullshit. See if you can do it in your own words.Oh yeah. You're too stupid to know how to quote even the Bible, much less summarize this rocket-science material.
Just read the article provided and the explanation is self-evident.
As I thought: you can't do it. Any more than you can quote Scripture.
Quote54 minutes ago, AlanF said:
And of course, it's immaterial whether works on Chronology available in Russell's day made errors. The most important for our thread, based on quite understandable historical errors, was that most writers dated the fall of Babylon to 538 BCE rather than 539, and certainly not 536. The 538 date seems to have gone back at least as far as Bishop Ussher and Isaac Newton. I don't know where the 536 date came from, although Russell always claimed it was firmly establishedQuoteNo,
"No" what? you moron.
Quotefor such published works reflect the scholarship of that time.
Again proving that "providence" had nothing to do with the mistakes, and the Revelation Climax book, and other WTS publications, lied about it.
Quotethus, the date for Babylon's Fall was accepted as 538 BCE again reflecting current scholarship of the day.
Wrong again. Russell used 536.
Quote54 minutes ago, AlanF said:
But in no case I'm aware of did any of these, aside from the demonstrably incompetent Nelson Barbour and those from whom he borrowed the 1914 chronology, neglect the "zero year" consideration.QuoteMany scholars of that time failed to account for the zero year problem so it prevailed in the Chronologies of the period.
Prove it. Cite at least two examples of those "many".
Quote54 minutes ago, AlanF said:
An examination of scholarly works available in the latter half of the nineteenth century proves Barbour and Russell's claim that their dates were firmly established is not true. Virtually every reference work used a slightly different set of dates for key events in the Neo-Babylonian period, but they generally differed by only one to three years. The following table shows three sets of dates for important events from this period, from reference works available in the period in which Barbour and Russell, and later Russell alone, wrote. These are: McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, 1871; Smith's Bible Dictionary, William Smith, 1864; Encyclopaedia Biblica, Cheyne and Black, 1899. Compare these with the currently accepted dates, which are also listed. See also Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 75, R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Brown University Press, Providence, 1956.. . .
QuoteThose scholars simply adopted their schemes of Chronology using different pivotal dates for their respective chronologies so your chart simply reflects the accepted Chronologies of the period accessible by Russell and Barbour.
Exactly what I said, you moron. Again proving that the Revelation Climax book lied.
QuoteOf course, study of Chronology has evolved from Russell's day
Yes, but what is essentially modern chronology was in place not later than about 1910. This is even reflected in Watchtower literature beginning in the 1940s.
Quoteand we have currently many different chronologies available today.
Nope. Standard Neo-Babylonian chronology is accepted by virtually all modern scholars. The crackpots like Watchtower writers don't count.
Quote54 minutes ago, AlanF said:
And of course, as usual you miss the most important point of all: far from being "providential" (which means "according to God's will") Russell's errors were purely human errors. So the Revelation Climax book and other lying publications actually blamed the Watchtower's God Jehovah for the Watchtower Society's chronological errors.QuoteProvidence cannot be excluded as a process of revealing things previously hidden now being revealed and taught by God's people today.
By that stupid 'reasoning' you can rationalize anything. So you think that God caused Bowen/Barbour/Russell to come up with wrong dates! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Quote54 minutes ago, AlanF said:
There's that gibberish English again. Don't they speak English in Australia?QuoteYou are so stupid you stumble over a typo
Your gibberish was not a typo. Too many misplaced words. Perhaps your mushy brain thinks in typos.
Quotebut you have not answered my earlier question.
Done a few hundred times now.
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4 hours ago, scholar JW said:
JW Insider
So what. it was the Chronology of the times and Bible Chronology was not then yet fully developed and he did not compute the 70 years.
Point being: if the uninspired J. A. Brown got it right, then the "providentially" inspired Bowen/Barbour/Russell people ought to have gotten it right.
The fact that they got it wrong proves that "providence" had nothing to do with their mistakes. And Russell, having claimed to speak for God (he was God's mouthpiece, he said), proved himself a false prophet not only by making false predictions in God's name, but by proclaiming false teachings in God's name, including his claim to speak for God.
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34 minutes ago, scholar JW said:
All that you do is simply quote or borrow from others.
That's the point, you moron!
34 minutes ago, scholar JW said:Your essay is just a rehash of COJ.'s thesis with nothing new
Actually it's a rehash of current scholarship, just as COJ's writings are. Both COJ and I personally are irrelevant to that large body of competent scholarship.
You, like your Mommy, are quite incapable of arguing against some scholarly stance without ridiculous ad hominems. You've learned well.
And we all know how passionately you lie about virtually everything.
34 minutes ago, scholar JW said:and you still have not answered my question. Have you?
See above.
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27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:
Alan de Fool
Perhaps, but it would be better than being like you -- a pathological liar who falsely claims to stand for God's standards of Truth, Justice and The American Way.
27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:Utter rubbish. Russell proved himself a competent chronographer.
Wrong. One only has to read his works and compare them to real history and events to see this.
27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:One only has to read his earlier volume later titled Studies in the Scriptures, Study II, 'The Time is at Hand, Vol.2. and for its time it was exceptional as to breadth and in-depth coverage of the subject.
And every prediction for the events leading up to 1914 was dead wrong. Everything observable failed.
I've produced a fairly comprehensive list of Russell's failed predictions and prognostications here: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/part-1-jws-beliefs-about-chronology-in.html
27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:His discussion of the date of our Lord's Birth is masterful in scholarship remaining rock solid even up today despite the fact that scholars disagree on the date but many have agreed on that earlier position proposed by Russell and his associates.
Ah, yes: the fact that current incompetent Watchtower "scholars" continue with Russell's incompetence proves that Russell was a brilliant scholar. LOL!
27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:Well he got the end of the Gentile Times right in 1914
Wrong. Everything observable that he predicted for that nonsense failed. Everything! A completely invisible "end of Gentile times" is in no way a fulfillment of a prediction. Should I quote Carl Sagan on that again?
27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:and by the way Alan you still have not answered my simple question seeing as you present yourself as a competent Chronologist. How about it?
See above. And of course, your game is simple-mindedly transparent. All you're doing is trying to create irrelevant side issues in your silly attempt to sidetrack the theme of this thread.
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3 hours ago, scholar JW said:
The so-called error that Alan F in his ignorance and cannot even give the modern calendation for the first year of Cyrus is simply facile.
Still can't write non-gibberish English. Perhaps using Grammarly or Microsoft Word would help. Of course, since you can't even work the copy/paste buttons on your keyboard, this would be rather difficult for you.
As for your lie that I cannot give such a "calendation", that's nonsense. I repeat: I'm not playing your games. The date is given in Julian years in almost all sources, of which you're well aware. Conversion from Julian to Gregorian dates is trivially accomplished by various means, the simplest being to find a website that does it. There are dozens. Here: https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1227757509
3 hours ago, scholar JW said:The above quoted WT article explains the zero-year problem nicely.
Bullshit. See if you can do it in your own words.
Oh yeah. You're too stupid to know how to quote even the Bible, much less summarize this rocket-science material.
3 hours ago, scholar JW said:No doubt if you checked reference works, Bible dictionaries and other works on Chronology of that period then a similar error would have been made.
There's that gibberish English again. Don't they speak English in Australia?
And of course, it's immaterial whether works on Chronology available in Russell's day made errors. The most important for our thread, based on quite understandable historical errors, was that most writers dated the fall of Babylon to 538 BCE rather than 539, and certainly not 536. The 538 date seems to have gone back at least as far as Bishop Ussher and Isaac Newton. I don't know where the 536 date came from, although Russell always claimed it was firmly established.
But in no case I'm aware of did any of these, aside from the demonstrably incompetent Nelson Barbour and those from whom he borrowed the 1914 chronology, neglect the "zero year" consideration.
An examination of scholarly works available in the latter half of the nineteenth century proves Barbour and Russell's claim that their dates were firmly established is not true. Virtually every reference work used a slightly different set of dates for key events in the Neo-Babylonian period, but they generally differed by only one to three years. The following table shows three sets of dates for important events from this period, from reference works available in the period in which Barbour and Russell, and later Russell alone, wrote. These are: McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, 1871; Smith's Bible Dictionary, William Smith, 1864; Encyclopaedia Biblica, Cheyne and Black, 1899. Compare these with the currently accepted dates, which are also listed. See also Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 75, R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Brown University Press, Providence, 1956.
Event McClintock Smith's Bible Encyclopaedia Current
& Strong's Dictionary Biblica
Nebuchadnezzar's accession 606 605 605 605
Jehoiachin's deportation 598 597 597 597
Jerusalem's destruction 588 586 586 587/6
Babylon's fall 538 539 538 539
Cyrus' 1st year 538 538 538 538
Return of Jewish exiles 536 536 538 537/8And of course, as usual you miss the most important point of all: far from being "providential" (which means "according to God's will") Russell's errors were purely human errors. So the Revelation Climax book and other lying publications actually blamed the Watchtower's God Jehovah for the Watchtower Society's chronological errors.
3 hours ago, scholar JW said:WT scholars one informed of the error made the adjustment establishing by 1963 our superior strong cable of WT chronology.
There's that gibberish English again. Don't they speak English in Australia?
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2 hours ago, César Chávez said:
That's right. Ignorance is no excuse not to understand. Therefore, I will apply your words to you. You just can't seem to accept, being obtuse for over 15 years by opposers can't be rewritten by actual facts.
English, please!
2 hours ago, César Chávez said:However, show the people how you fit the third year or the fourth year, a calendar difference of King Jehoiakim to your false claim of knowing scripture? Allen Smith mentioned it long ago. You, O'Maly, JWinsider couldn't answer it way back then, just like you can't answer it now, using secular evidence.
Nonsense. I covered this in an essay written in 1992: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/part-3-scriptural-arguments.html . The subject is covered elsewhere in that series as well. And of course, I've covered it in numerous online forums since then.
Since you can neither read nor write intelligible English, you have no business commenting on rocket-science matters like these.
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4 hours ago, JW Insider said:
December 1, 1912. Page 377-8. Reprints page 5141.
I'll put the first page on, but if it's hard to read I've expanded the paragraphs about the question:
Instead of defending the fact that there was NO zero year, the answer is a bit wishy-washy. He appears to use the fact that astronomers use the zero year, but he doesn't clarify (or doesn't know) that this for a different reason and that astronomers did this with full knowledge that the actual transition from CE to AD (BCE/CE) did not have it. But the wishy-washiness served the purpose of allowing Russell to be off by one year, as had been hinted at earlier. Later Watchtowers said that Russell had announced the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, but because no one had been able to discern 1914, the Watchtower in January 1916 shows Russell claiming that the Gentile Times ended in 1915.
All of this proves what we already know -- Russell was incompetent as a commentator on chronological matters. From his earliest days he used 1914, not 1915, as the end of the Gentile times. The March, 1880 Watch Tower, on page 2, said:
<< "The Times of the gentiles" extend to 1914, and the heavenly kingdom will not have full sway till then, but as a "Stone" the kingdom of God is set up "in the days of these (ten gentile) kings," and by consuming them it becomes a universal kingdom -- a "great mountain and fills the whole Earth." >>
It was only after about 1904, when many of the dire events Russell had predicted had not materialized, that he began waffling about 1914/1915.
For a comprehensive look at Russell's dates, see the articles beginning here: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/part-1-jws-beliefs-about-chronology-in.html
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JW Insider said:
Quote1 hour ago, AlanF said:
no arguments were given for the change. In fact, a footnote mentioning the change falsely claimed that the 1943 book had changed the date from 606 to 607 -- a flat-out lie.QuoteI had wondered about that too. And I've seen what you've written about it. At Bethel, I was involved in re-proofreading the ka book because it was to be printed again for a second round of "Book Study" usage, right after the COJ news broke. It had several odd passages that seemed to try to simply smooth over some complicated details. Like this one:
*** ka chap. 11 pp. 209-210 par. 55 “Here Is the Bridegroom!” ***
In the year 1943 the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society published the book “The Truth Shall Make You Free.” In its chapter 11, entitled “The Count of Time,” . . . This moved forward the end of six thousand years of man’s existence into the decade of the 1970’s. Naturally this did away with the year 1874 C.E. as the date of return of the Lord Jesus Christ. . . .Yes, of course. The information was designed to say as little as possible about those changes, and to give a completely false impression of the reasons for them.
QuoteIt was 1980, and I remember that my primary concern at the time was that this passage appeared to have been a subtle cue from back in 1973, that Christ's return was "now" to be expected in the 1970's, no longer the 1870's.
Of course. That brings up an amusing memory: Back around 1993 I was reading various JW-critical books, one of which pointed to the 1973 ka book and its admission that, until 1943, whatever is now taught about 1914 had been claimed for 1874. I mentioned this to my then-wife, who said, "That's not true!" I handed her her own copy of the book, the one she had studied and underlined for the Book Study, and opened to the appropriate page. She refused to look at it. That solidly exemplified the attitude of most JWs toward learning anything about how stupidly the Watchtower has buggered things.
QuoteBut I also looked up 1943 book and saw that the picture of Nebuchadnezzar eating grass was sandwiched between this sentence:
image.png
Yes, the 606 date was used until about the middle of the book. When I first looked into this back around 1993, I was astonished at the level of stupidity, but more so at the level of deception. It was obvious that the author, Fred Franz, had zero respect for the intelligence and honesty of his readers.
Over the next few years I accumulated non-English versions, and was again astonished that these were all published as if they were straight translations from the original English, but uniformly substituted 607 for 606. It was all too clear that the Writing Dept., under Freddie's direction, had systematically lied about the entire matter.
Quoteimage.png
But that, a few pages later in chapter 11, the date 607 was used.
(As an aside, the Writing Dept and proofreaders in the 1970's and 1980's didn't like splitting up the name Jehovah into syllables, as was done here in 1943. Typographers had syllabification rules, and also had "widows and orphans" rules related to things like this.)
Of course, that passage wasn't specifically about the zero year anyway, but if you looked up the chapter you would find it, and notice that 606 was still being used but in a way still a bit different than we now use it. And even though as you said, 607 was also acknowledged sporadically in some earlier publications.
Here was the 1943 version of how 606 could mean 607:
image.png
I just love that sentence beginning "Inasmuch as". It's a perfect example of the deliberate deception practiced by Watchtower leaders like Fred Franz and by many members of the Writing Department.
QuoteI've heard other Witnesses echo the claim that it was two slight errors that canceled themselves out, based on this:
*** w52 5/1 p. 271 par. 21 Determining the Year by Fact and Bible ***
At this point some will inquire why Charles T. Russell in 1877 used the date 606 B.C. for the fall of Jerusalem whereas The Watchtower of late years has been using 607 B.C. This is because, in the light of modern scholarship, two slight errors were discovered to have been made which cancel each other out and make for the same result, namely, 1914. Concerning the first error, Russell and others considered 1 B.C. to A.D. 1 as being two years whereas in fact this is only one year because, as has been said above, there is no “zero” year in the B.C.-A.D. system for counting years. “The Christian era began, not with no year, but with a 1st year.”—The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, p. 102.Yes, but the real source for modern JWs is this deceptive story reproduced in somewhat different form in a box on page 105 of the 1988 book Revelation -- Its Grand Climax At Hand. One footnote is priceless:
<< Providentially, those Bible Students had not realized that there is no zero year between “B.C.” and “A.D.” Later, when research made it necessary to adjust B.C. 606 to 607 B.C.E., the zero year was also eliminated, so that the prediction held good at “A.D. 1914.”—See “The Truth Shall Make You Free,” published by Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1943, page 239. >>
Providentially? LOL! This footnote is pure deception from beginning to end.
QuoteRussell himself had published a defense, albeit a weak one, of using the zero year when a "question from the readers" was addressed in the Watch Tower.
I've probably seen this, but can you supply the reference?
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50 minutes ago, JW Insider said:
The Watchtower, as you know, likes 537 instead of 538 because of their methodology. And we know the methodology:
For 70 years, the WTS counted back from 1914 and got 606. Then they subtracted 70 from 606 and got 536. Back then some scholars were still saying Cyrus captured Babylon in 537, not 539. So the WTS used 536 as Cyrus' first regnal year, even though that has proven to be two years off (from the date we use now).That means that Cyrus captured Babylon in 537 (also two years off) and would have surely made the proclamation in 536. But that was the old view.
Then there was a change around 1943/44, when the Watchtower finally saw that they had made a mistake in their previously published claims about the zero year. So, per the methodology, they now subtracted 2520 from 1914 correctly and got 607. They subtracted 70 years from 607, and now got 537 as the new date for what had been Cyrus proclamation.
But by then (1943), there was a new problem. The Watchtower had realized that there was no getting around the secular data that Cyrus actually captured Babylon in 539, not 537. So they needed a longer delay to fill in these two years. That's why, for the first time, the WTS began promoting a delay of up to two years after the fall of Babylon before the Jews could return home. Not just when they "could return home," but even adding another few months for preparation and travel, so that the new end date would be after they were back in their own land. When the Jews got back from the Exile wasn't important to the WTS before, only the time of the Proclamation.
That delay was easy to claim, of course: just make sure that we don't think Cyrus announce the proclamation early in 538. (as @Arauna has insisted) The Insight book, for example, speculates that this announcement happened "later in 538" or even "early in 537," so that the Jews wouldn't get back home until around October 537 -- two full years after Cyrus overtook Babylon.
Yes, we can all make excuses or speculations about why Josephus finally called it a 50 year period instead of 70, which was always the more common reference to the troubles with Babylon during this period. Yet, 50 perfectly fits the standard NB Chronology, so it's not just a coincidence. "70 years" was the common reference to the period of trouble that had included the loss of the temple. But when one would focus chronologically on just on the actual time when the Temple finally went into obscurity, chronologically it was closer to a 50 year period. (about 587 to 538/7).
The change of date from 606 to 607 is one of the best examples of the Watchtower's scholastic malfeasance. Russell knew that the 'correct' date was 607 as early as about 1909, because a couple of British Bible Students, the brothers Morton and John Edgar, had informed him. They used 607 in the two editions of their Great Pyramid Passages. But Russell was more interested in peddling his ideas on 1914 as the destruction of world governments. So when he had new editions of his Studies in the Scriptures published from 1910 through 1916, he left the old and wrong chronological calculations intact. Even in 1917, The Finished Mystery used 607 rather than 606 -- without comment. So both Rutherford and his retinue knew the 'correct' date. But because so much had been said about 606, and the "Millions" campaign was promoting 1925 as the date for Armageddon, no WTS official wanted to rock the boat because it all hinged on the 606 chronology -- which Rutherford was promoting as divinely inspired chronology. Even as late as the mid-1930s there were hints that WTS officials knew better. The Golden Age used the 607 date more than once.
After the unlamented Rutherford died in 1942 and Fred Franz became, in effect, the head theologian of the Watchtower Society, Franz decided to "correct" the date from 606 to 607. As part of that effort he changed 536/538 to 539 for the fall of Babylon. Then in the 1943 book The Truth Shall Make You Free Franz, smack in the middle of the book, argued that the date for the beginning of the Gentile times was "really" 607 not 606. But he forgot to change the date of Jerusalem's destruction to 607. So by the end of the book we had the amusingly inconsistent position that Jerusalem was destroyed some 10 months after "the Gentile times" had begun in 607 BCE. By 1944 and the publishing of The Kingdom Is At Hand, someone realized that the arguments were self-inconsistent, and in a chart of dates Franz showed 607 as the date of Jerusalem's destruction. But as per the usual Watchtower methodology, no arguments were given for the change. In fact, a footnote mentioning the change falsely claimed that the 1943 book had changed the date from 606 to 607 -- a flat-out lie. When editions of The Truth Shall Make You Free were published after 1944 and in languages other than English, all references to 606 were changed to 607, which made the 'argumentation' for changing "the Gentile times" to 607 unintelligible. But Watchtower adherents being what they are, no one complained, even if they noticed.
You can read about the gory details of this Watchtower deception in my article "The Evolution of 606 to 607 B.C.E. in Watchtower Chronology" here: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/evolution-of-606-to-607-bce-in.html .
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16 minutes ago, César Chávez said:
Here’s the problem with secular evidence of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty. It can’t be fitted to Bible chronology.
A finer example of circular reasoning can hardly be found. Of exactly the same sort employed by "ScholarJW Pretendus Bullshittus Maximus".
Is "dynamic energy" a Proper Translation In Isaiah 40:26?
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Arauna said:
No you wouldn't. You don't accept what people far more intelligent than I say about most aspects of science.
I'm trying to correct your thinking! Your mind contains so much Watchtower junk that you've got a huge amount of work to do.
And of course, you're here engaging in yet another sidestep, this time of the fact that Watchtower teaching on the "expanse" is dead wrong.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
I've read dozens. All are mostly nonsense based on biblical literalism or deliberate rejection of solid science. Most are also based on what has been called The Argument From Personal Incredulity -- "I just can't believe it, so it can't be so."
Presumably you mean Darwin. Another instance of not knowing what you're talking about.
Debunking is hardly the right term. "Ignorant ranting" is more like it. And of course, most of such come from Young-Earth Creationists who propose a 6,000-year-old universe. Do you really think such morons deserve a hearing?
Wrong. Read the book. Read the link I gave you. Are you afraid?
It's based on a pretty good sized chunk of geological evidence, you moron.
Wrong. The Ediacaran Period and related ancient times contain hundreds of fossils of soft-bodied organisms. These go back some 630 million years. Roughly 540 million years ago some hard parts begin to appear in the fossil record, which are bits of shells and teeth. A few million years later complete organisms with shells and teeth start to show up. The entire period of the "explosion" lasted 13 to 40 million years, depending on definitions and interpretations.
You're a complete moron, because you don't comprehend what you read. I said nothing about when the 'creative' period began. Rather, I spoke about THE CREATION OF LIFE. When does Genesis say plant life was created? THE 4TH DAY.
The Watchtower Society rejected such thinking decades ago.
All of which has nothing to do with our topic or reality.
Any supplementary material I supply IS evidence. You just stupidly reject it out of hand because you don't know enough to properly evaluate it.