JW Insider

59 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

Not holding my breath for that one, at least not for a comment section that publishes publicly.

It would be a total mess, much like this forum sometimes gets.

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Now find any one of those so-called astronomical tablets that does NOT contain indications that Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year was 587 BCE.^**

^**(+ or - 1 year, depending on how you wish to count them)

We should very quickly be able to see who is dodging the facts. 

You responded with a very clever dodge, @George88. Witnesses who don't know will admit they don't know. Simple and honest. Witnesses who DO know the outcome of such a challenge  will dodge it repeatedly. I'm pretty sure it's out of fear of admitting to other Witnesses what they have discovered. 

It's the same with the following question:

What BCE year does Babylonian astronomy evidence point to for the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign? 

We've already seen how another poster dodged this question just last week. To me, it says he knows the answer, and therefore MUST dodge the question. I'm assuming you know the answer too because, based on your past dodges, I think you will also not be able to admit the simple answer (+ or - 1 year depending on which method you prefer for counting).

1 hour ago, George88 said:

It seems like you and JWI have probably orchestrated the same fate to remove others.

It doesn't seem like that, at all. I have only given warnings to "AlanF" and I think just two to "Patiently Waiting for Truth." Never tried or wanted to try removing anyone, though. Removing someone from a forum such as this is pointless because they can just come back under another name -- often with a vengeance. Also, it bruises their egos, which is extremely important for those on forums who concern themselves with upvotes and downvotes. Those with bruised egos also never stop talking about those people who got kicked off unfairly. It's for the same reason I don't fully support our current shunning policy, either, except for certain types of cases. But this is nothing like a congregation. It's probably more like a place for anyone to add any kind of comments to jw.org if jw.org had a comments section.  

5 hours ago, George88 said:

Thus far, your so-called astronomical tablets have failed to provide any substantial evidence, and you continue to avoid facing this fact.

Let's turn the tables for a minute. I give all "my" so-called astronomical tablets over to you. Now they are yours. So now you have more than 40 references to several years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign with astronomical observations associated with those years. (Sometimes more than one astronomical reference is found on the same tablet.)

Now find any one of those so-called astronomical tablets that does NOT contain indications that Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year was 587 BCE.^**

^**(+ or - 1 year, depending on how you wish to count them)

We should very quickly be able to see who is dodging the facts. 

4 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Then there was the one of the grizzled farmer

"Dad jokes" are supposed to be ultra corny so that their kids groan, mostly in embarrassment.

That grizzled farmer one is a "grandfather joke" that I first heard from my grandfather. It's very funny. Although, I'm not sure, but I think it might actually be illegal to laugh at those grandfather jokes these days.

9 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

Tom you have treated me with vitriolic contempt with every braindead word you write! How is that not mean-spirited to those two working brain cells you're rubbing together? Did you lose one of them? LOL

First warning!!! LOL

39 minutes ago, George88 said:

Tom and JWI's approach to identity suggests that they expect people to maintain a consistent online persona.

Not me. I think it can be useful for some people and sometimes can even be funny. It's often entertaining, and it can have serious uses, too. It can be revealing in interesting ways related to psychology and human interaction. I think the world and Witnesses too need to be ready for an onslaught of fake people, fake news, fake information, and no one will have the time to figure out who's really who online, or even on the news. People can scrub their own accounts and try to start fresh (like a certain NYT's "journalist" who was just outed as a propagandist for Israeli intelligence). I don't like Nikki Haley's "true ID" proposal because people use identities as protection from harassment, political persecution, religious persecution, or even from being shunned by loved ones in their local congregation over the things they are learning. 

Sock puppets don't bother me. I personally don't want to use one. But there are times when their use can be informative. I've seen you use one in a good way, even very recently, to raise a question, and make an informative comment, and sometimes that keeps a conversation going for a good purpose. It's only when people under any of their names are being obnoxious, divisive, causing dissension, being nasty, etc., that I have a problem. Also, there are some people here who don't respond well to a string of downvotes at everything they say. And there are some who use their sock puppets for no other reason than to build up their reputation with upvotes, which doesn't hurt anyone. But I don't like to see a person get discouraged or offended at constant downvotes so I will sometimes "out" a person for doing that because then they will know it's ONLY this or that person, and it's not a "real" response.

Here's an example that could feel offensive to @Arauna:

Notice that I said nothing controversial, and added that I hoped Arauna would say something to us about how she is doing these days since we hadn't heard from her in a while. But you downvoted it. Is she going to think that some new person doesn't like her and doesn't want to know how she is doing? In the past another one of your identities told her multiple times that she was foolish for disagreeing with you. She got used to that from you. So if she knows it's just you again, she won't be overly concerned. 

1 hour ago, BTK59 said:

Do you mean people like James, Thomas, Rook, and Pudgy? Where can I find the comparison photos, JWI?

I think you missed the point. A sock puppet, as you know, is used as a secondary ACTIVE account. Pudgy was the name JTR used AFTER JTR stopped using the JTR account. 

1 hour ago, George88 said:

Therefore, approach the situation from a military perspective.

Or better yet, approach it from a Biblical perspective.

1 hour ago, George88 said:

The Babylonian chronicles unequivocally mention Jerusalem in 597 BC, providing concrete historical evidence.

That's quite an admission. And I'm sure you know that you could be disfellowshipped if you made this same  "unequivocal" statement and stuck to it publicly in your congregation after "counsel" or "reproof."  So I seriously hope you are careful about it, especially as you earlier mentioned that you hope to have your theory published someday. 

1 hour ago, George88 said:

Therefore, according to these tablets, Jerusalem met its end in 597 BC, challenging the widely accepted date of 587 BC, as argued by you and other former members.

 Actually, you have found evidence that Jerusalem met it's fall in 597 not it's end, not its destruction that the Bible says came about 10 years later. You haven't proven the Bible wrong yet. Those Babylonian Chronicles mention that Nebuchadnezzar went up against Jerusalem in his 8th year. So if you say his 8th year was 597, where does that put his 18th year, 10 years later. Sounds like 597 minus 10 is 587 is what you are saying his 18th year was. Unless you are manipulating something for other purposes. 

*** it-1 p. 775 Exile ***
King Nebuchadnezzar took the royal court and the foremost men of Judah into exile at Babylon. (2Ki 24:11-16) About ten years later, . . . at the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the Babylonian bodyguard, took most of the remaining ones and deserters of the Jews with him to Babylon

 

1 hour ago, George88 said:

Your sarcastic assumptions based on the 37th year and 18-year cycle are not supported by historical facts and other relevant factors for that period and region.

I think you are forgetting that a specific, identifiable lunar and/or planetary configuration that happened in a specific year in history actually is a historical fact relevant for that period and region. It's an event.

1 hour ago, George88 said:

Please provide evidence from the tablets that pinpoint the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC.

Asked and answered: I never wanted to and I never tried. I will only point you to the evidence that Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year is consistently pointed to in about 20 different ways by astronomy to be 587 BCE. It's still up to you to decide whether the Bible was correct when it states that this was the year that more exiles were taken from Jerusalem, and if the following is correct:

 (Jeremiah 32:1, 2) . . .The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah in the 10th year of King Zed·e·kiʹah of Judah, that is, the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar.  At that time the armies of the king of Babylon were besieging Jerusalem, . . .

You can quibble about a few months, or whether this was Fall to Fall counting vs. Spring to Spring, or whether the accession year is counted as the first, or not, or whether this was near the beginning of a long siege, or near the end of it. That's all just a dodge to avoid admitting that the BCE year is not more than a few months off.

However, if you want to ask for evidence from the tablets that Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year was 587 BCE, then that has already been done and there's a whole lot more of that evidence. "Connect the dots and trace out a familiar object." 

I think if you asked around, most people can see that it's simply a diversion, a dodge, to avoid answering the following question:

What  BCE year does ALL the ASTRONOMICAL evidence indicate for Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year?

Try to answer THAT question and you will begin to understand why almost ALL Witnesses who have any idea of the real answer are avoiding that question.

10 minutes ago, BTK59 said:

Will you be including James Thomas Rook Jr. in your humorous analogy, LOL? Grow up!

LOL. Pudgy JTR has had two names on this forum, but never used both at the same time.

12 hours ago, Many Miles said:

You know, there is a photo of him online suggesting that's a possibility! I'll have to see if I can find it. Found it.

Reminds me of the image that Allen Smith and BillyTheKid would use here. I think one or two of Allen Smith's names are still active and you can see it for yourself if you click on this: @AllenSmith35

That one above was actually when he used the Wyatt Earp picture. He also used this one as Billy the Kid:

He also picked names related to a few other Wild West gunslingers, Texas Rangers, etc. But there were also names from Latin, from Spanish, etc., and several regular-sounding names of people you might never associate with him, until they started posting. 

13 hours ago, Thinking said:

Can you share some of his good posts…..was he billy the kid once? 

No, he was not Billy The Kid. BTK was "Wally McNasty" as Pudgy called him. He is also George88, Cesar Chavez, Allen Smith, Alphonse, BTK59 [BillyTheKid59], Moise Racette, Dmitar, Boyle, etc, etc. I used to keep track, but I stopped at around 50 names. 

AlanF never used but that one handle here and evidently in several other forums around the Internet. And he would identify himself with his full name (if you asked) and not just hide behind the handle like some of us. LOL. I never followed him much into those topics about the Flood, the Ice Ages, Evolution, etc., because I'm pretty incompetent about those things and don't care to learn too much just yet about them. Maybe next year.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "his good posts." But I looked back through some chronology topics and found dozens of well written polite posts that merely shared information, and all the while he was getting called names by others here. There was some light-hearted bantering between him and scholarJW  as they had obviously had a long history of previous discussions elsewhere. But I see a lot of obnoxious posts to him before he responded. 

But I will start out with one of his absolute worst, because I thought that TTH's response was about the funniest and most memorable retort:

On 2/11/2021 at 5:58 PM, AlanF said:

You KNOW what you've said. You're not even fooling your braindead fellow cultists, except perhaps the ineluctably brainless Arauna.

On 2/11/2021 at 7:43 PM, TrueTomHarley said:

My worst fear is that someone will pull the curtain away and I will discover that I am actually talking to a precocious 9-year-old child.

But that was after he had developed a kind of persona where he had developed a HISTORY with Cesar, and Arauna and TTH, and we already expected that these were just follow-ups from prior topics. But I go to his old topics in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and he was actually quite helpful in providing sources and resources for information. But a topic couldn't go for 10 pages before he started fighting back.

I do see one thing in his favor, in my opinion. Those attacking him were often just offering empty opposition and ignoring his points, or offering "tired" old standby arguments from Young Earth Creationists which he considered totally debunked scientifically. Even though he wasn't attacked with foul language, he was attacked with constant escalating levels of antagonism, and ad hominem stuff. But in the middle of his rather-too-direct responses to those, whenever someone asked a reasonable question, he was right back to giving emotionless straightforward facts to think about. These are the same facts we should be aware of as counter-arguments to, let's say, the Flood, should it ever come up. In the middle of all this bantering, notice how he goes right back to being an encyclopedic resource, even though we don't like the info. Here:

https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/88407-creation-evolution-creative-days-age-of-the-earth-humanoid-fossils-great-flood/?do=findComment&comment=153844

It's too long to display the contents here, but his follow-up comment is also thought-provoking and I'll quote it in full:

On 1/18/2021 at 10:12 AM, AlanF said:

Faith is by definition belief without evidence. Without evidence, one can 'believe' anything at all -- astrology, scientology, space alien abductions, etc.

The question I examined is not whether one can believe in fairy tales, but whether there is physical evidence for a recent global Flood, and whether specific physical disproofs are valid. Hence, Ann O'Maly's challenge.

The idea of a recent global Flood has logical difficulties. Why would a God who could kill 185,000 Assyrians in one night commit massive overkill by a global Flood that wiped out nearly all life -- life that had nothing to do with "wicked men"? It's like using a hydrogen bomb to swat a fly. One who believes such things must believe that his God is a murderous nutjob.

That's not faith-building, of course. And it's not stuff I personally want to think about. But it's thought-provoking information and the kind of thing that's useful in a discussion forum, especially if others know how to respond and defend against it (especially the informative post above it with only the link).

On 2/28/2024 at 12:10 PM, George88 said:

Any number of events can be applied to the astronomical tablets VAT 4956 - MB 33006. . . . 
You have things going on with King Hophra, and then you have things going on with the Median King Cyaxares and the Lydians? Therefore, they have no value for the year stipulated the tablets are.

That's correct, and you also have things going on in China and Europe at the time. Therefore the events have nothing to do with the fact that this and ALL OTHER astronomical diaries and observations from his time point to 568 as the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, and that is the same thing as pointing to 587 as the 18th year, and 586 as the 19th year. It absolutely does not matter what events were going on at the same time. You are right that they have no value for the year stipulated by the tablets.

On 2/28/2024 at 12:10 PM, George88 said:

Jeremiah’s seventy-year period of Babylonian rule might be reckoned to begin with Judah’s submission to Babylon in 605 or with the fall of Jerusalem in 597 or 587; it might be reckoned to end with the fall of Babylon in 539, the initiation of a Judahite return in 538, or the completion of the rebuilding of the temple in 517. It is thus possible to argue that Jeremiah was chronologically accurate. But he himself hardly intended the “seventy years” to have a precise chronological reference; nor is there reason to infer that Daniel understood it this way. There is little evidence that seventy years suggests a human lifetime. It does suggest a long but finite and complete period; cf. Isa 23:15; Ps 91:10; also Esarhaddon’s inscription, “Seventy years as the period of its desolation he (Marduk) wrote down (in the book of fate).” p.460

Interestinig isn't it? This has come up before in old topics, that Jeremiah may have meant the expression "70 years" in much the same way as it looks like Isaiah used it. "The typical or "fated" lifespan of a kingdom" like that of Babylon. As if it were already a cliche about Assyria, and the "lifespan" of a kingdom rarely went beyond a dynasty of say, father/son/grandson before a new dynasty would begin. It may not have been literal, a literal, exact 70 years, but just used a way of reminding people that empires and dynasties come and go, and Jehovah will use that same lifespan cycle, of the rise and fall of empires, to both punish and then release his people. In that sense Babylon's "70 years" becomes Judah's "70 years" of reversal. Not that either one needs to be exact or even needs to coincide. The "70 years" given to one is the cause of the "70 years" of the other. 

I personally don't buy it, though, because it's so obvious that the fall of the Assyrian Empire was most apparent 70 years before the fall of Babylon was most apparent. From 609 to 539 is a much better theory than 587 to 517 for the "flip side" of the 70 years for the Temple. I think you have implied that the Temple might have actually been effectively destroyed in 597 or at least at the Babylonian Chronicle's event associated with 597. It makes for an interesting "compromise" only 10 years off the WTS date, and 10 years off the evidence from all the astronomy dating for NEB II.

On 2/28/2024 at 12:10 PM, George88 said:

The tablet mentions the 37th year of King Nebuchadnezzar. According to secular history, his reign started in 605 BC minus 37 equals 568 BC. Accession year used. Regnal year 567 BC. Now people want to go backwards from that tablet. 568 BC plus 18 equals 586 BC. 568 BC plus 19 equals 587 BC. So, people are using a given cycle. Big deal. Those same cycles can also explain other events that were happening at the same time.

You said that wrong. Accession year is used so that his 37th regnal year IS also 568 and not 567, according to the way Babylonians were required to count. If you had used a different method of counting regnal years (NON-Accession year counting) then the 37th year would be one year EARLIER not later, because his accession year (the zero-th year) would have already counted as his 1st, therefore his Babylonian counted 10th would be counted in NON-Accession as his 9th. And his 37th would be counted as his 36th. The year earlier was 569 BCE, not 567 BCE. But G88, BTK57, etc., never admit error.

On 2/28/2024 at 12:10 PM, George88 said:

Notice where this author mentions the fall of Jerusalem in 597 BC. If we take that at face value, why would Nebuchadnezzar want to destroy something in 587 BC when he had the chance to do it in 597 BC?

He didn't say it was destroyed in 597, though, did he? He said it fell. Just like Babylon fell to Cyrus in 539. It wasn't destroyed then. For most cities, it wasn't worth destroying if they could still be forced to pay tribute, keep the fields planted, keep the vineyards dressed, etc. There is more wealth to transfer to a king when you DON'T destroy the city but take away their elites who keep most of the trading profits from the "people of the land," and replace those elites with soldiers who are required to take most of those same profits back to their king. 

Also, note that the Bible said it took him about a year and a half of siege to take Jerusalem and finally break through its walls. If you notice the wording carefully in Jeremiah, it appears that most of the ones exiled in 597 were apparently NOT from Jerusalem itself. That happened in year 18/19.

(Jeremiah 52:28-30) . . .These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar took into exile:

• in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews.

•  In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem.

•  In the 23rd year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard took Jews into exile, 745 people.

• In all, 4,600 people were taken into exile.

On 2/28/2024 at 12:10 PM, George88 said:

That's what you need to work with, not the dates since by their face value they are meaningless unless you can "disprove" them and erase those other events from history to not consider them as a potential influence on the astronomical tablets.

As you also indicated elsewhere above: the opposite is true. You need to work with the dates by their face value, and not try to disprove them just because you assume certain events must have happened elsewhere at a different time. I can say I was 60 in in 2017 and that I saw a total solar eclipse in NYC, but you can't say I wasn't just because you claim that I should have been 60 during the Viet Nam war, or that there was another total solar eclipse in 1925, so THAT must have been my 60th year. The desired event has nothing to do with the date. My birth certificate doesn't change for any events, my driver's license doesn't change for any events, my passport doesn't change for any events. 

54 minutes ago, BTK59 said:

What software are you using to make your observations as opposed to the ones used by Hunger, Steele, Etc.?

Over time, I have used 4 different ones that calculate ancient readings. Some are on old broken laptops and I didn't bother to update because it looked like I would have to buy new versions for my current laptop. The only ones I used for Babylonian and Persian readings that I posted here were from Stellarium and The Sky 5 (maybe 6, too). I never paid attention to the ones Hunger and Steele were using. Apparently, they all give the same results within seconds or maybe a minute of each other. But it takes 4 full minutes for the "night sky" to turn even one degree, so they are all giving the same reading.

18 hours ago, Many Miles said:

But with AlanF seeing anything through another person's lens of emotion was something he had trained himself to refrain from as a matter of learning

I'm trying to see your perspective here, and it made me go back and look through the threads that I remembered him in pretty well. I was surprised to notice that in the worst-case posts I had recalled, that he wasn't the one who started it. Others were being nasty, and calling him a "fool" before he responded in kind, but he was less apt to watch his vocabulary even if others were escalating. I also noticed that he was adamant that someone should try to respond to his point rather than constantly dodging and weaving and diverting. 

But I recall once seeing him refer to Arauna as foolish in a chronology topic, and either Tom or I let him know he was picking on "sweet old lady." (Sorry if that offends, Arauna.) He responded that it didn't matter how old anyone is, if they is going to spout nonsense with such conviction, then age is no excuse; she is going to hear where she is wrong. 

It's true that it's easier to ignore empathy and emotion in an online discussion if you are just here to defend your [strong] opinions against the [strong] opinions of others. I know a couple of people who are brilliant intellectually, but who are "on the [autism] spectrum" and have that exact trouble in real life, and they are always getting in trouble with others. I counseled one who has problems at work because he does OK with others in a meeting format, and one-on-one, but he writes scathing emails, and raises his voice with co-workers on the phone. I had also noticed that at meetings he did better when he looked at people's faces when disagreeing with them. I told him about this, as a way to help, but he said he grew up with "Asperger's" and would never look at a person's face when he talked to them. 

As a moderator I remember having to warn Alan a couple of times and sent that warning up the flagpole to the admins:

But who's counting? LOL

Unlike others who got warnings (who would dig in their heels and get suspended), AlanF would respond humbly and contritely and explain himself without making excuses.

FYI, I have moved some of the posts about AlanF and the ensuing discussion about errors, behavior, forgiveness, prodigality, etc., over to a new topic: https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/90947-forum-participants-we-have-known/

I believe that, so far, this move only affected some posts by @BTK59, @Many Miles, @TrueTomHarley, and @Srecko Sostar

4 hours ago, BTK59 said:

There seems to be an error trying to access this link. Can you download the PDF?

It's fairly small (164k) so I'll just post it here:

text-observation-mars-steele.pdf

13 minutes ago, BTK59 said:

Who can determine, based on this observation, who utilized an ascension year as opposed to a regnal year? Do you think you are making too many assumptions? 

That would mean that they counted Nabopolassar's years differently from all the other Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian and Persian kings in Ptolemy's writings and in the original Babylonian inscriptions. Anything's possible. But you appear to be more concerned with whether this Nabopolassar was co-reigning with a different Nebuchadnezzar than the one who claimed he was Nabopolassar's son.

I'm only talking about the mistake the writer made in 1969 in presenting the idea that a non-matching eclipse was a better match than a matching eclipse. 

22 hours ago, BTK59 said:

I see no conflict with this observation,

It's pretty simple.

• Ptolemy said that the Babylonians reported an eclipse that was only PARTIAL in the 5th year of Nabopolassar. 
• Today, that exactly described PARTIAL eclipse can be calculated to 621 BCE. 
• That makes perfect consistent sense because it meshes perfectly with 100 other astronomical observations that would also indicate that 621 BCE is the 5th year of Nabopolassar.
• But the Watchtower claims that 621 BCE is the 4th year of Nebuchadnezzar, so the WTS needs this eclipse to have happened in 641 BCE, otherwise 1914 doesn't work.
• So a Watchtower contributor or writer looks at the eclipse log for 641 BCE, and lo and behold there was a total eclipse that year. 
• So the Watchtower writer/editor says: Look Ptolemy and Babylon say that a partial eclipse happened in 621, but we found an eclipse that doesn't match that description in 641. Even though it doesn't match, we'll go with it, and say it's even BETTER than the right one that matches, because the 641 eclipse is TOTAL not partial.

It's the same as if this happened, not that it ever would:

• BTK59 says, I found a report with a map of a burial mound of Cherokee Native Americans in Dahlonega, Georgia, USA containing tiny "Indian arrowheads" of the exact shape that the Cherokees made. I wondered if the map was accurate and if I could find one of those tiny arrowheads. And look, it worked, I just found this Cherokee-style arrowhead exactly where the map pointed. 
• JWI says, Wait, No. I just found a large flint spearhead in burial mound of Osage Native Americans in Joplin Missouri. This must be what you were really looking for, because it was found in a burial mound just like you said.
• Now BTK59 has two options here. He could say:
  • BTK59 says: JWI, you are a despicable fool. The map said the tiny arrowheads were in Georgia, and that's where I found an arrowhead exactly matching the description. And now you bring me a large spearhead from hundreds of miles off the map. And you say it's the same just because they were both in burial mounds.
  • Or, BTK59 could say: "I see no conflict with this observation, JWI." 

Sometime today or tomorrow, I will likely move some of the very off-topic posts over to here that are currently in a topic about Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, because they are about people and other unrelated topics.

@xero,

It might have been an innocent set of mistakes after mistakes after mistakes by Furuli, who may have been a bit myopic and started out with extreme confirmation bias, believing that the 588 date MUST be right at all costs for the 37th year. After all, this was the same method the Watchtower (above) had suggested in 1969, so it MUST be true. But it still comes across as a "pious fraud." 

But even more serious, I think, than the potential "pious fraud" unquestionably accepted from Furuli, is the method the Watchtower itself used to hide a very important fact. The hidden fact is directly related to the admission that the tablet contains more PLANETARY observations than LUNAR observations. Why are they just barely mentioned and overlooked?

*** 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. These describe the position of the moon or planets in relation to certain stars or constellations. There are also eight time intervals between the risings and settings of the sun and the moon.
Because of the superior reliability of the lunar positions, researchers have carefully analyzed these 13 sets of lunar positions on VAT 4956.

Really? This last sentence was completely misworded. It should have said the very opposite:

Because lunar positions are more flexible, and more likely to repeat, even coincidentally and sometimes PREDICTABLY from one year to the next and planetary positions often never repeat again for hundreds of years, this would mean that close matches for the planetary observations would therefore be much more important for determining the BCE dates of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.

Instead we see some sleight of hand here about supposedly superior reliability. When it should have said "inferior reliability" or "superior flexibility." 

But here's the kicker. Rolf Furuli ADMITS in his book that the planetary positions can ONLY be a match to 568 BCE. (Not his goal of promoting 588.) In other words, it was always a worthless exercise to try to overcome the lunar data when he already had to admit that the greater number of readings were for the far superior and more reliable planetary data that he could not even attempt to dismiss in any reasonable way.

@xero, here is the comparison done by Ann O'maly. I got almost exactly the same results running the tests on "Stellarium" and "The Sky." Keep in mind, that the moon pretty much travels across the same path from night to night, so there will ALWAYS be other years when very similar lunar/stellar configurations are seen by coincidence alone. In fact, every 18 years 11 days 8 hours the moon will repeat an eclipse, very often with an additional eclipse usually visible 5 or 6 months from that 18 year cycle.

You are always going to get SOME very similar readings in ANY two years that are compared.

The paper is much longer but it is well summarized with the chart I copied there and here: