2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

For the record, Ann, when I reproduced FakeJW's words, I did not edit out his specific reviling of you. Perhaps I should have.

Naw, I saw the original, outrageously out-of-order post but hadn't had chance to comment on it earlier. I partially agree with @AlanF in that people should be allowed to show their true colors. However, if there is to be any meaningful discussion of 'controversial' subjects at all, no matter how idiotic and difficult some posters might be and have been for years [let the reader use discernment ], one shouldn't have to wade through a quagmire of base insults and crud-slinging to get to the relevant, on-topic parts. 

Wow. I get called all the cusswords under the sun ... just for calling AllenSmith[insert#here] a kumquat several pages ago? Â 

I think both @Arauna and @AlanF will be interested in this new study:

https://www.academia.edu/35554936/Judeans_in_Babylonia_A_Study_of_Deportees_in_the_Sixth_and_Fifth_Centuries_BCE

From the introduction:

"Deportees played a key role here [in the less populated regions]: they were settled in marginal rural areas and integrated into the land-for-service sector of agriculture.33 Given plots of land to cultivate, they had to pay taxes and perform work and military service in return. The majority of cuneiform sources pertaining to Judeans originate from the land-for-service sector of Babylonian agriculture." - p. 6

"Agriculture was of huge importance to the Babylonian economy, and a great many deportees were settled in the countryside to bring new land under cultivation. There is no evidence that the Babylonians practised Assyrian-style two-way deportations, but deportees were predominantly taken to Babylonia, especially to depopulated areas in the countryside." - p. 9

I've only skimmed parts of this doctoral dissertation because it's only just come up in my email feed.

3 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

I can only state the facts of the matter

From the 'Neil-Speak Glossary':

        Fact: /fakt/ : noun

        plural noun: facts

• a thing that is imagined to be true but bears no resemblance to objective reality.
• post-truth, Trumpian, 'alternative facts'. 
• also commonly known as 'BS'.

14 hours ago, scholar JW said:

Boy I am trembling all over as I face the mighty juggernaut of Alan F but I have dealt with far greater minds than the pretender, Alan F.

Those 'greater minds' haven't benefited you any as far as scholastic honesty and integrity are concerned, unfortunately, even when your face is repeatedly slammed with the scriptural and historical evidence.

14 hours ago, scholar JW said:

 It seems that we are now in embedded with personalities so perhaps I should throw Emeritus Professor Michael Hasofer and his wife Atara into the mix who were converted to Orthodox Judaism because of Jehovah's Witnesses, its a fascinating story.

Well, that was a success story, lol.

Neil's heart-warming experience of how JWs helped an educated, professional couple convert to Judaism will doubtlessly be included in a forthcoming JWdotOrg Broadcasting production. You read it here first, folks.

The rest of your post is even sillier than your first paragraph so isn't worthy of comment.

10 hours ago, Anna said:

(By the way I can't read page 208 because I can't make it bigger @Ann O'Maly. Maybe that's  because of this glitch too....)

Tap or click on the image, then tap/click again, then swipe or Ctrl + to enlarge? Your browser may need a cache clear-out and relaunching?

You had listed your source as this, Nana: 

17 hours ago, Nana Fofana said:

M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition

The Bible Dictionary was commenting on the Nabonidus Chronicle but, because the Bible Dictionary was published in the 19th century, its dating of the Persian conquest of Babylon was a year out.

The Nabonidus Chronicle only gives a damaged '17th year' of Nabonidus for Babylon's fall - it doesn't contain BCE dating. The modern scholar has to deduce the BCE date by other means. As I said, the Bible Dictionary was out a year.

Nice try, though.

10 hours ago, Nana Fofana said:

Yes, I know.  It's not good enough, of course, but at least it shows Cyrus' Decree being issued not before Oct of 538, when he actually arrived in Babylon.

Your antiquated source has Cyrus conquering Babylon in 538 rather than the established 539. It doesn't help you determine that Cyrus could only issue his decree from Oct 538. In reality, once the year is corrected, it shows that Cyrus could only issue his decree from Oct 539. We have no issue with Cyrus issuing his decree after Oct 539.

(Just saw Alan had already addressed this. Soz.)

I bet you wish you had posted p. 208 yourself, hey Neil, like you were asked, instead of baiting me and @Anna to find another source. Then you wouldn't have found yourself splattered on the windshield of the @AlanF juggernaut yet again Â 

11 hours ago, scholar JW said:

Read that paragraph again on p. 367 in Franz's COC , 2nd edn, Sept, 1994 which clearly shows Franz' s agreement with the Society's later published statement in the Proclaimer's book that Brown did, in fact, connect Daniel's 'seven times' with Lukes' Gentile Times in Luke 21:24.

This is how attentive to detail you are - you still can't even get the page number right. In the 2nd edition, Franz discussed John A. Brown on p. 142-3. There is nothing about Brown on p. 367 - just a reproduction of a letter regarding Franz's disfellowshipping. As I showed in my previous post, your assertion about Franz agreeing with the Proclaimers book statement is wrong. 

But you know all this. AlanF went over this with you many years ago. And yet you persist in these untruths.

7 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

(why does @AlanF call @scholar JW Scholar Pretendus

Likely for the same reason I can't address him by his chosen online misnomer. I start breaking out in hives when I do.

------------------------------

About the 537 thing. There was a fun thread on that topic started by one of the Allen Smiths a while back. His argument for a 537 return could be summarized thus: Link to post. 

 

17 hours ago, scholar JW said:

Ann

I have made clear my position so the ball is in your court.

scholar JW

Smh. Um, for years you have been clutching that ball tightly to your chest, ungraciously refusing to bat it across.

Fortunately, someone has thrown over another one. It took the person* less than 2 hours, Neil! 

To review, you claimed:

Quote

It was noted that the connection is found on page 208 wherein the connection is clearly and easily identified. This page contains 2 paragraphs in portion, the first par. mentions the 'seven times' of Daniel and the very next par. contains the quotation of Luke 21:24 so a connection between the two is plain. 

At last, readers here can judge for themselves how 'plain' and 'evident' the connection is ... or otherwise:

 

Further, you said:

Quote

Franz had in fact supported the Society's position as shown in his Crisis Of Conscience, 1994, 2nd edn.p.367 yet he in a email dated September 24, 2003 he chastised me and the Society for sloppy research and failing to properly understand Brown's description of the prophetic periods.

I also have his 2nd edition, although it's a 1992 printing. Franz did not "support the Society's position" about what was stated in the Proclaimers book. He actually said:

"Brown first published this interpretation in 1823 and his method
converted the “seven times” into 2,520 years in exactly the same way
found today in Watch Tower publications."

... meaning that the way Brown converted 'seven times' into 2,520 years, by using a day-for-a-year method, is the same one Watchtower uses. That's quite different to what you were implying.

By 2004, Franz had added a footnote:

"See page 134 of Jehovah’s Witnesses—Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom. The book
makes the erroneous statement that, although not ‘clearly discerning’ the date with
which the 2,520 years would begin or end (evidently meaning that his dates for the
beginning and the ending did not match those of Watch Tower teachings), Brown
“did connect these ‘seven times’ with the Gentile Times of Luke 21:24.” As
Jonsson’s book The Gentile Times Reconsidered correctly states “Brown did not
himself associate this period with the Gentile Times of Luke 21:24.” His 2,520-
year calculation did, however, play a part in the later linking of the “seven times”
with the Gentile Times in 1826. See The Gentile Times Reconsidered, pages 32-36,
for a full discussion of this development." - p. 179

So as usual Neil, your claims do not align with reality.

* Thanks go to Alan F for promptly providing the scan.

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

It is all very simple.

Indeed it is. You know what to do.

Somebody quickly build a Starbucks there or those pioneers will never survive.

In all your nearly 20 years of possessing it, you've never 'been disposed' to sharing it.

Again I ask, Neil: Why should anyone bother Bethel about it? Don't they have enough to do? YOU have the page. YOU are here now. YOU can easily post it ... unless the page's contents contradict your claim which, given your long posting history on the internet, is entirely probable. 

But if you're not going to do it, you're not going to do it, so let's move on. 

8 hours ago, scholar JW said:

Ann O Maly

You are free to believe in error but that is not scholarship. I can assure you with utmost certainty that page 208 does exist and you will have to try harder to find it perhaps you can write to Bethel and they will provide a copy. According to the table of Contents for Brown's Eventide , vol 2 covers 416 pages. Methinks some apostate conspiracy is at work in order to hide the truth from the little sheep.

scholar JW

Why bother Bethel? You have the page, a computer, and yet you won't share - even to help @Anna. This just makes you look plain mean, Neil ... or scared that it will reveal you've been the one trying to hide the truth. Ah well.

1 hour ago, scholar JW said:

Ann O Maly

To all thus interested:

Would someone please post page 208 of Brown's Eventide and give Ann some peace. I could but am not disposed to at this moment because I am concerned about Ann's postings on this subject and her apparent bias against the WT scholars not wishing to add 'fuel to the fire'.

scholar JW

You are 'not disposed' to post it. As I said before, this is telling.

As long as you refuse to produce it, we cannot verify whether your claim is true. As far as we are concerned, for the purposes of this line of discussion, p. 208 doesn't exist. We will have to rely on the testimony that is available, namely, the excerpts of Brown's Even Tide that are accessible online and which show that you, and the Proclaimers book, erred.

59 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I just hate to see honest people scammed by the stampeding herd mentality, and them being cheated through intricate webs of lies

Sometimes the stampeding herd mentality is right (like those who advocate 2+2=4). Sometimes the stampeding herd mentality is wrong (like when the consensus was that we lived in a geocentric universe). 

You will have to provide some darned, good, scientific arguments to overturn all the evidence that the acceleration of global warming is being caused by man.

Arauna and all:

Quote

Velikovsky's ideas have been almost entirely rejected by mainstream academia (often vociferously so) and his work is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions. Moreover, scholars view his unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions. Stephen Jay Gould^[34] offered a synopsis of the mainstream response to Velikovsky, writing, "Velikovsky is neither crank nor charlatan—although, to state my opinion and to quote one of my colleagues, he is at least gloriously wrong ... Velikovsky would rebuild the science of celestial mechanics to save the literal accuracy of ancient legends." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky#Criticism

See also:

Astronomical Pseudo-Science: A Skeptic's Resource List: 7. Immanuel Velikovsky and Worlds in Collision

@scholar JW

3 hours ago, Anna said:

Will someone post page 208?

The reason I linked to the article was to respond to your idea that an increase in CO2 is good thing because ... PLANTS. We need sufficient quantities of plants to use up the CO2. If people keep chopping down huge land areas of forest, there won't be enough plant life to absorb all this supposed beneficial CO2. But too much CO2 isn't good for plants anyway, and they need more than that to survive and thrive. See the article 'Plants cannot live on CO2 alone' linked to earlier.

Excess CO2 results in the acidification of the salty oceans which in turn harms ocean life - including plant life. You mentioned acid rain before. Even though you said it's a result of mixing carbon and rainwater (it actually results from mixing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides with rainwater), you apparently didn't join the dots of how damaging it would be and is to plants!

35 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Most of the Planets sequestration of carbon through photosynthesis ... and the resultant release of oxygen when the CO2 molecule is broken up, is done by Ocean plant life ... NOT land plants ... but about that...

Plants cannot live on CO2 alone

36 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

but about that... there are more forests in the United States now than there were at the time of the founding, due to wildfires that are controlled by man.

Great. Have the conservation and regrowth of U.S. forests kept pace with the deforestation rates in the rest of the world, primarily the Amazon?

38 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

As a person who has calculated land areas for a living, I can tell you that unless your quote:

52 minutes ago, Ann O'Maly said:

"From logging, agricultural production and other economic activities, deforestation adds more atmospheric CO2 than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world's roads"

has hard data done by actual measurements .... AND those measurements are accurate ... that quote is a meaningless lie. Do you REALLY think the author of that quote ACTUALLY counted the trees, and the cars, trucks, and such?

The author took the figures from studies. 

59 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I used to do solar insolation studies for a living ... THIS is why we have climate change.

Milankovitch Cycles.

...and the fact that Sol is a variable star.

But these effects are only pieces of a larger picture; environmental and climate scientists have already factored that in.

38 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

BECAUSE it is getting warmer ... bacteria are pumping out more CO2.

Direct evidence of human contribution to atmospheric CO2

35 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

CO2 is ...PLANT FOOD !

Plants extract carbon from the AIR to make wood, etc, and poop OXYGEN.

But you need sufficient quantities of plant life to offset the excess CO2. And also ...

"From logging, agricultural production and other economic activities, deforestation adds more atmospheric CO2 than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world's roads"

8 hours ago, Queen Esther said:

So  I  not really  believe  to  a  very  big  climate - catastrophe...  the  weather  is  changing  when  the  weather  will  -  and  that  every  year....  sometimes  more  cold  and  sometimes  more  hot. ...

NASA - What's the Difference Between Weather and Climate?

9 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Immortality of a human soul is the biggest lie ever perpetrated on humanity ... "global warming"  caused by man is the second biggest lie.

How Do We Know that Humans Are the Major Cause of Global Warming?

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The reason I wasn't explaining it again is that this mistake made me realize that the last two times I explained it carefully, that Allen wasn't paying attention. It's fine not to pay attention, that's anyone's choice, but I was simultaneously being ridiculed by Allen for supposedly not understanding and not reading carefully the last two times I pointed out this exact same point.

I guessed that was the reason. As you have seen multiple times, my own patience runs out (far more quickly than yours!) with the kinds of people who should know better by now. Patience is reserved for those genuinely trying to learn about and negotiate their way around this involved subject.

2 hours ago, scholar JW said:

It is, in fact, page 208 that finally presents the connection of Luke's 'Gentile Times' and Daniel's 'seven times' as shown by the context on the same page which the reader can judge himself if such is the case. ....

Yeah, yeah. Produce it, then.

@allensmith28 ...

@JW Insider is trying to tell you that there is a difference between astronomical year numbering and AD/BC or CE/BCE year numbering.

Common mistake.

15 minutes ago, allensmith28 said:

So, your willing NOT to play by the VAT4956 rules, and go against all formulas by suggesting JULY, instead of the Given correct months for the Saros Cycle which none come close to VAT4956.

17 minutes ago, allensmith28 said:

ad ho·mi·nem But, I'm glad you mentioned it since COJ did think it, instead of just a flawed ledger.

You're offended by being called the name of a small, orange fruit.

COJ never thought NBC 4897 an astronomical text, you donut. 

('Donut' - you can tell the gloves are coming off now!)