Ann O'Maly

Arctic warming means we're getting an ice age here again? 

 

 

2 minutes ago, allensmith28 said:

That’s the point of him not being able to back up his “absolute” claims, by back peddling.

You're not making sense. Again.

2 minutes ago, allensmith28 said:

However, we’ve discussed that VAT4956 doesn’t meet the Saros cycle. 

VAT 4956 meets Saros cycle 59. None of your pictures display anything from Saros 59 and are thereby irrelevant to the lunar eclipse predicted on VAT 4956.

17 minutes ago, allensmith28 said:

How about NBC4897? I donÂ’t find it either.

Um. NBC 4897 isn't an astronomical text, you kumquat. 

19 hours ago, allensmith28 said:

The treatise that COJ submitted to the Watchtower, was flawed. Witnesses seem to forget that point, and this is why you ONLY see the 4^th edition of COJ’s book in public, now.

In his third edition, COJ took a calculated “risk” to introduce a FLAWED document. Text NBC-4897 by Brinkman A. John. 

[...]

The 19^th year ends up in 585BC. A far cry from that of what people wanted to illustrate with VAT4956. So, COJ had to *correct* that error by embracing VAT4956, and readjust the terminology.

COJ's brief discussion of the NBC 4897 accounting tablet from the 4th edition of GTR. See p.131f.

COJ's detailed discussion of the NBC 4897 accounting tablet, where he mentions this: 

Quote

"The most extensive and detailed discussion of the tablet, however, is Stefan Zawadzki’s article, “Bookkeeping Practices at the Eanna Temple in Uruk in the Light of the Text NBC 4897,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 55 (2003), pp. 99-123. Zawadzki’s discussion covers 25 large-sized pages, four of which give a transliteration and translation of the tablet. The article contains the most detailed and careful examination of the tablet so far. He corrects a number of misreadings and misinterpretations in the previous articles by Ronald H. Sack and G. van Driel/K. R. Nemet-Nejat."

I've read both the van Driel/Nemet-Nejat and Zawadzki articles. The tablet confirms the standard NB chronology and that no extra kings and timeline chunks can be inserted anywhere between Nebuchadnezzar II and Neriglissar. 

14 hours ago, scholar JW said:

I wrote twice to Bethel seeking clarification of this dispute, the first letter, ECE:ECP April 13, 1998 which gave me the source for the quotation

You mean the 'quotation' consisting of two words: "seven times"? Nobody is disputing that Brown used that term in his exposition of Dan. 4 and the 2520 days. 

14 hours ago, scholar JW said:

ECM:ECH March 11, 1999 came with 2 photocopied pages, p, 135 and 208 from Brown's book along with a photocopy of the title page showing the vol. number and date of publication; vol.2, 1823. 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. 

Well, you said something very similar in that 2012 email. I'll c&p my response:

Quote

Now, you have carefully worded your final statement to avoid being specific:

 

       The link between Luke and Daniel is clearly presented by Brown in his Eventide, Vol.2, p.208.

 

 I suspect that the link between Luke and Daniel is actually the one made between Dan. 12:7 and Luke 21 ... unless you are suggesting that Brown overhauled his chronological scheme in his Vol. 2 and then repeated his initial viewpoint from Vol. 1 in his later 1827 work, The Jew, the master-key of the Apocalypse (p. 23). Is this really what you are asking me to believe? 

 

If, indeed, Jonsson and Franz have overlooked Brown's temporary change of mind which the Proclaimers writer picked up on, I'm sure you would have provided hard evidence by now, like a full quotation from p. 208, Vol. 2 or, better yet, a scan of the page. It's easy to do. It's telling that you have not yet done so, even though this has been a bugbear of yours for some years now 

P. 135 is online (link provided in previous post). It does not support the suggestion that Brown equated Dan. 4's 'seven times' period with Luke 21:24's 'Gentile times.' 

P. 208 is not yet online for everyone to see. All you have to do is produce a scan of p. 208 and prove your claim. Nearly 20 years of sitting on this, Neil - are you going to? I dares ya!  

18 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Ann is routinely cutting in her remarks. "I am amazed (but maybe I should not be)" she hurls at someone who has resisted her instruction on another thread.

Haha. You do not know my and Neil's history or the biting insults he's hurled my way in our time. We are both broad-shouldered and we understand each other. He evidently enjoys a good pummelling or he wouldn't keep coming back for more. 

16 hours ago, scholar JW said:

Interestingly, John Aquila Brown had first linked the words of our Master and Saviour in Luke 21;24 with the 'seven times' of Daniel ch.4.which is the basis of our doctrine today.

  I'm amazed (or am I? I shouldn't be really) that you still claim this, repeating the Proclaimers book's error. I've lost count how many times you've been corrected on this point over the past decade or so by several individuals. @JW Insider has just corrected you again! and yet you persist. 

I'll c&p a portion of my email to you from 2012:

12 hours ago, Anna said:

Of course I think this article will be misunderstood by many, as has been already on here, to mean we should stop all online discussions, and only read material from JW.org.

"Stick with what we have authorized. You'll be safe." The article just underlines AMIII's admonishment and warning that 'unauthorized' internet activity exposes JWs to "spiritual danger."

Is this forum and those like it GB authorized and approved? Of course not. 

And remember the Question Box from the km 9/07?

Quote

Does “the faithful and discreet slave” endorse independent groups of Witnesses who meet together to engage in Scriptural research or debate?—Matt. 24:45, 47.

No, it does not. ...

... “the faithful and discreet slave” does not endorse any literature, meetings, or Web sites that are not produced or organized under its oversight.

"Stick with what we have authorized."

There will always be those who love to research and openly discuss their views online, and thereby have to rationalize away the GB's clear counsel. I say GOOD! because this new article is another attempt at information control.

Quote

Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

Tom Clancy

 

23 hours ago, Sam Anya said:

I think I go with Ann when she said memorial should be for only active witnesses in a secret location

@Jay Witness said that - not me

Ask them to please put you on their Do Not Call list. You may get a visit once a year or two just to check you still live there or still don't want to be routinely called on ... excepting any occasional mistakes made by those who were either not told of the DNC or weren't paying attention.

So to make sure ...

Put up a sign: 'No religious callers' or 'No Jehovah's Witness proselytizers' or 'JWs beware: Rabid, salivating, two-headed apostate lives here. Knock at your own risk.' ? 

And JWs don't come to your door every day - c'moooon. 

 

Yes, I see it.

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

And if you have read enough of our publications you know that whenever a possible expert is only given a first name, or given just a generic title without a name, that he is probably a Witness, and we don't want that fact made too obvious, out of fear that it makes the argument seem weaker.

His full name was given in some non-English editions of the Awake! Below is information from a cached webpage.

Quote

Gerard Hertel PhD'75 retired in January 2001 after thirty-five years with the USDA Forest Service, but he's certainly been busy since then. Hertel writes that he "now spends his time teaching the Bible as one of Jehovah's Witnesses; getting to know his wife of thirty-three years, Bobbie, a little better; and serving as an adjunct professor in the Department of Biology at West Chester [Pennsylvania] University," in his home community.

Referring to the Rama Singh 'Quotegate' incident wasn't meant to start a debate on whether or not it was a misused quote. That topic has been discussed before elsewhere. Singh thought it was; I and others have read his entire article, compared his quoted comment with how the Awake! writer apparently intended to use them, and come to our own conclusions. But my aim was purely to show that the QFR article's implication that guaranteed-non-altered 'spiritual food' can only be found on the jw. org site isn't really true.

Thanks for all your comments.  

Yes, I doctored the image. It was partly fun, partly to make a point.

Quote

"If the spiritual food passes through other channels,
there is no guarantee that it has not been altered
or contaminated.—Ps. 18:26; 19:8."

However, you all immediately noticed something was 'off' and you could compare with the original on the jw. org site. And yet, there is no guarantee that the spiritual food on the jw. org website hasn't been altered either. 

Consider this:

A critic of JWs may allege that there was an Awake! article on the topic of Creation and Evolution that misused a respected scientist's quote. 

A JW may retort that the magazines NEVER misuse quotations because the writers research very carefully and honestly - there was even a recent Broadcast showing us this was so. The critic must be LYING!

So the critic produces this scan with the relevant part marked in red:

:

But there is no sign of this particular quote on jw. org nor in the downloadable digital versions. Other than the red marking, has the image otherwise been doctored? Is this critic trying to pull a fast one?

It turns out that the scientist complained to the Org about the magazine's use of his quote and the Org removed the quote from the website's article and the digital download editions. The quote will still be found in the original hard copies and downloaded editions saved to people's computers.

The critic was telling the truth and, apart from the red marking, the scan was a true representation of the original page.

You see, just because the publications are reproduced on other sites, it doesn't mean that the content has been tampered with. Equally, just because a publication appears on the jw. org website, there is no guarantee that the content has not been tampered with - whether it is due to a scientist's complaint about how his work was used, or due to new understandings in doctrine. Website content is so easy to edit now.

@Anna  made the point about it not violating copyright to post links to the jw. org site. True. The article says:

Quote

"Therefore, as the Terms of Use
indicates, you may e-mail someone an electronic
copy of a publication or share a link to material
found on jw.org."

But the receiver of the email-attached copy isn't getting it direct from the official website. S/he's getting it from a secondary source and we're back to this.

Quote

"If the spiritual food passes through other channels,
there is no guarantee that it has not been altered
or contaminated."

Which raises a question: If one plays safe and emails a link to the Org's publications page instead, would the 'link share' count as a placement on the report slip?

@Witness said about there still being Facebook pages for Lett and Morris. I guess we are to understand these are fraudulent.

And finally, the reasons for the thread title:

Quote

"Furthermore, posting our publications on websites
that allow comments provides a place for
apostates and other critics to sow distrust of JehovahÂ’s
organization. Some brothers have been
drawn into online debates and thus have brought
added reproach on JehovahÂ’s name. An online forum
is not an appropriate setting for “instructing
with mildness those not favorably disposed.”
(2 Tim. 2:23-25; 1 Tim. 6:3-5)"

This is the GB's 'loving counsel' folks. Discussion of JW publications on these forums is dangerous, inappropriate, and some JW 'brothers' who have participated have made Jehovah the Org look bad. 

So, time to pack up, shut up shop and go home .... *sniff*

?

.... Bwahahaha! 

Are you kidding? It's much too late to stuff the genie of free online discussion back into its bottle! 

To quote Leah Remini:

Quote

"If your religion is so amazing and doing all these amazing things for the world, then it should stand up to some questioning."

 

From the April 2018 Watchtower, p. 30-31. This is a bona fide, unadulterated copy (honest). 

What are your thoughts on this article?

Btw, I hope the irony of posting this here is not lost on you guys, lol.

21 hours ago, Arauna said:

This to me is so strange because all I see here on this forum is an OCD rehash of the  1914 issue  every time I open up my computer to come to this website .......and NO new interesting thoughts I can really think about.  Is this all this band of renegades can talk about?

Aw, how awful for you, suffering this way. Why don't you de-stress by ignoring all threads on this topic and start some new engaging and thought-provoking ones of your own? 

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

I have pointed it out before that JWs  establishment of 537BCE is NOT based on the Babylonian chronicles but mostly on Persian sources.

Establishment of 537 BCE for what exactly? The 539 BCE year for the overthrow of Babylon by the Persians is established using Babylonian sources - the Babylonian chronicles, the Babylonian kings list, and the Babylonian astronomical tablets.

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

Middle east chronology is synchronized with Egyptology dates - and Egyptology dates are out with 300 years - with less as we get to the Greek Ptolemaic kings. Recently watched an interesting lecture by David Rohl.... fascinating evidence that the exodus did take place ...... if one looks in the right period.

The exodus occurred many hundreds of years before our period under discussion so the alleged discrepancy is irrelevant. Egyptian chronology synchronizes with neo-Babylonian dates very well. Rohl does not have an issue with NB dates and agrees with its established timeline. I think this has been pointed out to you before.

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

But people on this forum keep on hashing up these Babylonian chronicles of very old king lists as though they were inspired by God! But these ex-witnesses  have an agenda.... this is why they keep rehashing these unreliable old Babylonian king lists.  While these lists are helpful they are not to be trusted as the only source of information. 

The primary Babylonian sources are contemporaneous with the events under discussion so have more evidential weight than histories written by other nations hundreds of years later. 

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

Some of the Babylonian chronicles were copies of copies and written 250 years after Cyrus died. 

This is a non-argument. The Bible manuscripts are copies written long after the events they describe. So?

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

The organization give several good reasons why they do not use the Babylonian chronicles.

The Insight book uses the Babylonian chronicles to verify Bible events all the time. The organization needs the Babylonian chronicles. I don't know why you imagine otherwise. 

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

The death of Cyrus  is given in Olympiads as 62, year 2. (531/530 B.C.E)  Cuneiform tablets give Cyrus a reign of 9 years which substantiates his year of conquest as 539 BCE. (handbook of biblical chronology by Jack Finegan 1964. ) The kings which come AFTER Cyrus are also dated by these same methods and therefore the persian dates of succession are much more reliable. 

Except that Watchtower takes issue with dates of Artaxerxes I's reign, but that's a whole 'nother topic. Cuneiform tablets give Cyrus a reign of 8 years [Correction: Arauna was right - it was 9 years - my faulty memory]. Both neo-Babylonian and Persian dates of succession are reliable.

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

Astronomical calculations can also be misleading because the most reliable information is only a 'total' eclipse ... because many eclipses occur in a 50 year period and many are not  properly described - which can be misleading such as in the case with king Ahab.....  Please read this information in the insight as well.  

False. The most reliable information is NOT 'only a total eclipse.' Planetary and lunar configurations measured relative to fixed stars are reliable information also, and can be useful for dating purposes. Babylonians did properly describe some lunar eclipses so that they can be dated accurately, thereby helping to fix the NB timeline.

12 hours ago, Arauna said:

There are people here who think they are smarter than Jehovah's spirit and smarter than the available written information on the middle east and persian dynasties.  They keep bringing up the same old rehash of these Babylonian dates which I call the typical OCD of those who have lost Jehovah's spirit.

I see you've utilized @JW Insider's list of ad hominem's and lobbed one out.

9 hours ago, Foreigner said:

VAT4956 doesn’t “illustrate” which direction one needs to go with the 18-19 years.

It wouldn't, Allen. The astronomer scribes knew the difference between addition and subtraction, having already learned those basic mathematical skills when they were children.

If you are having difficulty with these math concepts, I recommend this website. Then hopefully you'll eventually figure out whether 18 is more or less than 37 and, if you become more advanced with how BCE dating works, which way we should count to get from 568 BCE to 587 BCE.

You're welcome  

For the sake of balance, here is a more scholarly examination of the festival's roots:

JETS 58/2 (2015) 299–324

Quote

 

THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTMAS AND THE DATE OF CHRIST’S BIRTH - Kurt M. Simmons

The origins of Christmas and the date of Christ’s birth are separate but related questions. However, Christmas is usually assumed to have no connection with the actual date of Christ’s birth. Discussions regarding the origins of Christmas typically omit reference to the birth of Christ, unless it is to affirm it is unlikely he was born December 25th. This is unfortunate because it has skewed discussion and taken it in directions which tend to impugn the legitimacy of Christmas itself. However, chronological evidence strongly favors December 25th being the actual date of the nativity, such that the assumption that Christmas is unconnected with the date of Christ’s birth is no longer academically defensible or sound. ...

 

Read the whole article HERE.

12 hours ago, Foreigner said:

VAT 4956 at “best” confirms the chronicled “besieged of Jerusalem” in an around the 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar. ...

... Does it in anyway mention the destruction of Jerusalem BEFORE the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar? Show me where it claims this extraordinary insight in the tablet!!

Wait, what ...?

Honestly, your whole post is so muddled I don't know what you are trying to argue. 

(Thank you, @JW Insider for responding to the 'tampering' thing, etc.)

51 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I'm afraid that @tromboneck had his mind in the toilet with that particular comment. He was thinking of BM in another sense:

• (Song of Solomon 5:4, KJV) ". . . and my bowels were moved for him.."

LOL. Whoosh.

On ‎21‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 11:27 PM, tromboneck said:

I am surprised he numbered his BM's and could remember them.Did he keep a ledger?

The BM numbers will have already been written in the reference works he consulted. But this raises the issue of how the same tablet can be assigned different numbers depending on how they were catalogued and the publication they appeared in, and it can make research pretty challenging for somebody initially trying to find their way around this subject.

On ?21?/?12?/?2017 at 9:29 PM, Foreigner said:

Perhaps. The last time I looked, it has been scrutinized by skeptics since writing became a form of communication. However, I don’t see anywhere in scripture that our *faith* in GOD should be equal to the “faith” in the Babylonian Chronicles. Then, the weight of evidence becomes more in the theories of men than that what is actually written in GodÂ’s INSPIRED word, scripture. Then we can agree that the Babylonian Chronicles tell a story, just NOT a COMPLETE story. It's all in the interpretation, then!

 

The Babylonian Chronicles do not tell the whole story - that is true. But we were talking about an astronomical diary, weren't we? You seem to have confused two categories of texts. You were casting doubt on the diary's trustworthiness because "no one was there to authentic[ate] what was 'copied'" and because of some errors and "linguistic incompatibilities" (whatever that means). The same criticisms could be (and are) levelled at Bible texts. But surely, ancient writings should be taken on their merits and cross-checked with other contemporary writings. The fact remains that the astronomical data on VAT 4956 are representative of celestial observations made in 568-7 BCE. This isn't about subjective theological interpretation; nor is it about incomplete historical narratives or how a nation's history is spun; this is data that can be scientifically verified. 

18 hours ago, scholar JW said:

You claim that 597 BCE can be a Pivotal date similar to that of 539 BCE but such a claim is nonsense.

It's interesting that 539 BCE can be called a 'pivotal date' when the Bible doesn't provide a year date for Cyrus' conquest of Babylon. Instead, we have to derive the 539 BCE year date from,

• one of the Babylonian chronicles (which indicates the event happened in Nabonidus' 17th year),
• Babylonian astronomical tablets year-dated to kings' reigns, providing BCE anchor points,
• Babylonian king lists which we can use to count forwards or backwards from those astronomically fixed anchor points.

In contrast, we can affirm 597 BCE because,

• the Bible dates the siege of Jerusalem and its surrender to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar's 8th year (inclusive counting),
• a Babylonian chronicle dates the same event to Nebuchadnezzar's 7th year (exclusive counting - cp. Jer. 52:28),
• some Babylonian astronomical tablets are year-dated to Nebuchadnezzar's reign, thereby providing BCE anchor points,
• simple math means we can count Nebuchadnezzar's years forwards or backwards from those anchor points,

but paradoxically, Neil thinks it nonsense for 597 BCE to be termed a 'pivotal date.'

Go figure! 

 

52 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I searched Google for "Gentile Times Reconsidered 4 pdf" and the above pages came up. I couldn't find a complete single pdf on kristenfrihet.se but the pieces seem to be there. I tried a download from all the others except scribd and all of them returned the full 559 page pdf. I don't know if all of these sites are making it available legally with permission, btw. Use your own judgment.

Please only use the kristenfrihet source for the book, despite it being messy. It really should be in one pdf book form rather than in separate parts like it is, but this is the original scanned and authorized copy.

The pdfs from other sites will give you a corrupted copy that has been edited and added to by a person called Tönis Tönisson (look at the copyright page and you'll see his name). He has even dishonestly inserted some comments in the body text that COJ didn't write.