JW Insider

I am having enough trouble typing without the direct use of the letter c x z or the Shift keys. Workarounds are tedious. I vaguely recall that I sometimes cannot get a requote to work correctly, and have gone in and edited the HTML by pressing a button called "Source" on the edit bar. One problem is that the software makes a quick simplification to unrecognized paragraph styles which can result in losing the content, especially if you just typed it on another source, like an electronic notebook or word processor, and then try to copy and paste it to here. I notice that this also happens if I am in the middle of a bulleted item like this: sample bulleted item And when I try to enter text after the second bullet that I am copying and pasting from somewhere, it shows up just fine but then disappears as soon as I hit "Enter." I assume, again, that the HTML underneath is being rewritten because the closing portion has not been written out correctly, such as a <p> and the closing </p> for the end of that paragraph's "style" The same must be happening with the <li> for a bulleted list and a mixup with a closing </li> (or <ol>). If the formatting code "behind the text" is malformed, an entire block of text will disappear. I find that if I do a quick Enter, Enter, or close out the bullet manually toggling off the formatting icon for bulleted text, that my text will appear just fine. All I have to do then is go back up and close out the extra paragraph break so that the space between paragraphs is not too great.

Thanks. That's exactly my point. You can insert information in brackets, but it should be related to the meaning in any of the source material you are using. One or two mistakes will happen now and then, but consistent misuse gives the impression that you are trying to give a false impression.

Not always. Which is why you will often see phrases like "brackets ours" "brackets theirs" "brackets in the original" "brackets not in the original." It is fairly consistent, and I have no problem with the specific use of brackets in a quotation that are added and will assume they were not part of the original. But if they are not part of the original they should be understood as having the equivalent meaning of the original source, found in the context, but not part of the quote. An example could be: "The apostle [Paul] mentioned Babylon in his letter." One would surely expect that somewhere in the context of the original source, that Paul was the apostle mentioned and not, for example, the apostle Peter. If there can be any doubt that the bracketed material is not somewhere referenced as such in the source material, then the explanations about whether it was in the original or not are worthless: USA usage rarely uses curly braces/brackets.

The point of writing on this kind of topic is for clarification. These were only a few examples of literally 2,500+ times when a secular date was used that differed from the evidence for that secular date with no explanation as to why. If you had always read that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066, what would you think if you read a new set of history books that always said it was 1046, but with no explanation? In some cases this new date was seemingly listed to be even more accurate by saying it was was October 14, 1046. Then in an attempt to show that there is scholarly backup for the 1046 date, a source is quoted that shows that, yes, it happened on October 14, but it put 1046 in brackets, even though the scholarly book said 1066 elsewhere. In cases like this, especially if there is a pattern that can be confusing, it is important to clarify that this set of brackets was not in the original. The following is from a book on an unrelated topic, but it speaks to the same types of things that might need academic clarification: And this of course goes both ways, especially if it is something that should be clarified:

Hope you don't mind, @scholar JW, I deleted the comments that didn't work, including responses to it.

Allen, Imagine there are 100 people in a room and 98 of them say 2+2=4. Two of them say 2+2=5. Who are the opposers? It's not the 98 who are "opposers." It's the two people claiming they have their own "good" reasons to say that 2+2=5, and it might even be a belief that stands alongside some of the best beliefs one can imagine. Still, if they continue to insist that 2+2=5 then those two persons are the more natural opposers. They are the ones who oppose mountains of overwhelming evidence. Sure, the 98 would "oppose" the idea that 2+2=5, but the more natural "opposers" are the two who oppose the facts and evidence. Another thing is this idea of "their OWN secular history." It's another sign of not thinking clearly. Secular history and the evidence for it is not something that belongs to the people you oppose. It's not their OWN secular history. You are merely referring to the facts and the weight of the evidence available to all of us, you and me, and billions of other people. It would be more accurate to say that you oppose people who try to sync the secular evidence to Bible chronology. But, of course, this doesn't make sense because both 539 and 607 are secular dates that you and other opposers of the evidence have tried to sync to a version of Bible chronology. It's a legitimate concern to wonder whether you can sync the non-Biblical chronological evidence with the Biblical chronological evidence. If you can't then you might consider the following options: there might be something wrong with your understanding or interpretation of the Bible, or the Bible is wrong, or there might be something wrong with your understanding of the secular evidence, or the secular evidence is wrong, or it is some combination of the four possibilities above. As you know, Thiele for example, did a pretty thorough job matching up the kings of Israel with the kings of Judah with the secular chronology of Assyria, Egypt and Babylon. But he finally got to a couple points where he just said that the Bible must have it wrong. McFall and others take another pass at it, some in defense of the Bible and some in defense of secular evidence. (And some just to improve Thiele's work, in any way they still can.) But after finding a solution to 99% of the issues, there is a controversy over this 1% that is still unsolved. It feeds a conflict that the secular data is somehow the enemy of the Bible data. Now, any time someone comes up with something that seems to fit a Bible interpretation, they can now get support for it by just claiming that "opposers" to their interpretation are taking the secular data over the Bible. They have made use of a ready-made propaganda tool. Bible vs. Secular. Just by approaching the problem this way, it's obvious who is going to win among Bible believers. But what happens when those Bible believers look into the data and evidence for themselves and find that there is no conflict at all? In this case the Bible believers are very happy that the secular data corroborates the Bible data. No problem. But what happens to that key interpretation that was set up as a supposed conflict to the secular data? What if they built a life or religion around that interpretation? They have a couple of choices. They can look at the data and be honest and humble about it and explain that the evidence doesn't seem to support their interpretation. But this doesn't mean they are immediately required to change their belief. They might be able to admit the strength of the opposing data, but still go through each and every bit of it and still explain why they think their interpretation supersedes the data. This might end up being right or wrong, and honest people would appreciate being given the opportunity to make up their own mind. They might still consider the interpretational theory as a strong possibility. At least it's a more honest way to deal with it. But what would you think if you saw them do the following? Perhaps they avoid most of the data, avoid trying to explain the differences, and try to keep other people from seeing the data, even pretending that experts agree with them about the data. Any books or websites that consider the data are presented as apostate, poison, cancerous, "spiritually pornography," etc. They can pretend that they have explained all the opposing data by misrepresenting that data. Perhaps there are 12 strong pieces of data and one of them has a weak point, and they deal only with that one weak point and hope no one notices that they ignored or misrepresented the other 11. They can find unrelated quotes that people have said about different sets of data and hope that their listeners don't notice it was unrelated. They can use two sets of scales to be able to utilize pieces of the evidence that they accept, without explaining why those pieces are any better or worse than the pieces they reject.

In addition to @scholar JW's infamous attempts, I have to mention again that the "Insight" book and other Watch Tower publications have also done something just like it many times, even adding bracketed secular dates of their own choosing to contexts discussing secular chronology which are in complete disagreement with the dates the Watch Tower has added: *** it-2 p. 480 Nebuchadnezzar *** The inscriptions further show that news of his father’s death brought Nebuchadnezzar back to Babylon, and on the first of Elul (August-September), he ascended the throne. In this his accession year he returned to Hattu, and “in the month Shebat [January-February, 624 B.C.E.] he took the vast booty of Hattu to Babylon.” (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. K. Grayson, 1975, p. 100) In 624 B.C.E., in the first official year of his kingship, Nebuchadnezzar again led his forces through Hattu; he captured and sacked the Philistine city of Ashkelon. *** it-1 p. 1025 Hamath *** According to an extant cuneiform inscription (British Museum 21946), after the battle of Carchemish in 625 B.C.E. (Jer 46:2), Nebuchadnezzar’s forces overtook and destroyed the fleeing Egyptians in the district of Hamath. (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. K. Grayson, 1975, p. 99) In this same area, a few years earlier, Pharaoh Nechoh had taken King Jehoahaz captive. (2Ki 23:31-33) Then in 607 B.C.E., with the fall of Jerusalem, Zedekiah and other captives were taken to Riblah . . . *** it-1 p. 1267 Jehoiachin *** It appears that Jehoiakim died during this siege and Jehoiachin ascended the throne of Judah. His rule ended, however, a mere three months and ten days later, when he surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar in 617 B.C.E. (in the month of Adar, according to a Babylonian chronicle). (2Ki 24:11, 12; 2Ch 36:9; Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. Grayson, 1975, p. 102) *** it-2 p. 359 Medes, Media *** Following the Median capture of Asshur in Nabopolassar’s 12th year (634 B.C.E.), Cyaxares (called Ú-ma-kis-tar in the Babylonian records) met with Nabopolassar by the captured city, and they “made an entente cordiale.” (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. K. Grayson, 1975, p. 93) *** it-2 p. 410 Minni *** . According to a Babylonian chronicle, in his tenth year of reign (636 B.C.E.) Nabopolassar “captured the Manneans who had come to their (i.e. the Assyrians’) aid.” (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. K. Grayson, 1975, p. 91) *** it-2 p. 480 Nebuchadnezzar *** But a mere three months and ten days thereafter the reign of the new king ended when Jehoiachin surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar (in the month of Adar [February-March] during Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh regnal year [ending in Nisan 617 B.C.E.], according to the Babylonian Chronicles). A cuneiform inscription (British Museum 21946) states: “The seventh year: In the month Kislev the king of Akkad mustered his army and marched to Hattu. He encamped against the city of Judah and on the second day of the month Adar he captured the city (and) seized (its) king [Jehoiachin]. A king of his own choice [Zedekiah] he appointed in the city (and) taking the vast tribute he brought it into Babylon.” (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. K. Grayson, 1975, p. 102; PICTURE, Vol. 2, p. 326) *** it-2 p. 505 Nineveh *** With reference to Nineveh, a Babylonian chronicle reports: “They carried off the vast booty of the city and the temple (and) [turned] the city into a ruin heap.” (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. Grayson, 1975, p. 94; PICTURE, Vol. 1, p. 958) To this day Nineveh is a desolate waste, and in the spring, flocks graze near or atop the mound of Kuyunjik. Date of Nineveh’s Fall. Though effaced from the extant cuneiform tablet that relates the fall of Nineveh, the date for this event, the 14th year of Nabopolassar, can be supplied from the context. It is also possible to place the destruction of Nineveh in the framework of Bible chronology. According to a Babylonian chronicle, the Egyptians were defeated at Carchemish in the 21st year of Nabopolassar’s reign. The Bible shows this to have taken place in the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign or in 625 B.C.E. (Jer 46:2) Therefore, the capture of Nineveh (about seven years earlier) in the 14th year of Nabopolassar’s reign would fall in the year 632 B.C.E. It was almost as if there was a Watch Tower policy stating that whenever a book is quoted that gives evidence of secular chronology, it is almost always necessary to make it look like it supports Watch Tower chronology even when anyone who reads the books in question can easily see that they do not.

@Nana Fofana, This was addressed to you, @Nana Fofana, but with reference to my own discussions with @AllenSmith on this forum and jw-archive before this one going back 3 years. @Anna has already counseled me on my habit of responding to posts meant for other people, but I think I should make another exception here. I do happen to know all those discussions quite well, and I can tell you with assurance that AllenSmith is playing a deceitful game with you here, as he tries to do with everyone, Witnesses and non-Witnesses alike. By purposely not being clear, he attempts a kind of plausible deniability each time he is caught. @Arauna pegged him perfectly, if inadvertently, when she said the following in this thread, referring to someone else. And again, referring to someone else she said the following, which perfectly describes someone who does not care for real scholarship even if one professes it. She also mentions one who won't show the reasonableness to look at all aspects of a subject, and who always goes back to her old arguments even if good arguments are given. AllenSmith has, indeed, "posed a new theory." He has spoken about it, given several details of it here, and even mentioned here that he has had such a theory published by a ghostwriter for reasons he stated, just two weeks ago. You can reconstruct some of this thesis by statements that AllenSmith has made about it himself in the last three years. But it is better to ask him of course because there are some seeming contradictions and I'm sure there is much more to the thesis than the portions he has revealed so far. If he is willing to explain further, I'm sure you will see that it is an interesting theory, but it is also pretty clear that most JWs would see it as doing exactly what AllenSmith has called "deceptive:" I don't consider his theory deceptive at all, but if he is willing to explain it, I do believe you will see that it contradicts too many Biblical facts. For example, potentially equating Nebuchadnezzar II with Nabopolassar, and making "Nebuchadnezzar the Great" the same as Nebuchadnezzar III might have some coincidental support here and there in later works. (AllenSmith has pointed to the book of Judith and its references to "Nebuchadnezzar" and also a 19th century "typo" in a scholarly work.) But it is not directly evidenced in any contemporary Babylonian artifacts. Also, what does AllenSmith do with the Bible's data that Evil-Merodach followed Nebuchadnezzar in the 37th year of Jehoicachin's exile? This is a fact that perfectly fits the "secular" and "Biblical" evidence, but not AllenSmith's thesis. (Jeremiah 52:31) Then in the 37th year of the exile of King Je·hoiʹa·chin of Judah, in the 12th month, on the 25th day of the month, King Eʹvil-merʹo·dach of Babylon, in the year he became king, released King Je·hoiʹa·chin of Judah and brought him out of prison. You would have to drastically shorten the reign of "Nebuchadnezzar the Great." This might clarify why AllenSmith tries to discredit the contract tablets, especially the Egibi tablets, too. That's because the Egibi tablets agree with the Biblical chronology, but not the Watchtower chronology or AllenSmith's proposal. As Insight says: *** it-1 p. 453 Chronology *** For Awil-Marduk (Evil-merodach, 2Ki 25:27, 28), tablets dated up to his second year of rule have been found. For Neriglissar, considered to be the successor of Awil-Marduk, contract tablets are known dated to his fourth year. By the way, much better examples of this kind of "deceptive spin" in linking WT chronology with secular chronology were found in the first few posts by @scholar JW in this thread, and which matched the first arguments he put forward in a previous thread, too. Here's an example. See if you can see it:

Excellent! I think so, too. Of course, there is much more to say on the topic of the intersections between Mosaic Law and other ancient legal codes. I was surprised at the level of literary agreement with the LH and related written codes. It's a little off-topic, but it appears to reach even beyond the actual content of the laws themselves (expected?), but to the style (expected?), structure (expected?) and even to the Epilogue and Prologue found in Exodus (unexpected!) For myself, I don't think going much deeper is very useful right now, but the book and journal article I quoted from are easy to find if anyone wants to look into it more. I'll get back to this topic in a few days.

Irony sharpens irony, again.

Thanks, AlanF, for starting the new topic. Unfortunately, when I move older posts to that thread, the software here credits the author of the new thread with whoever has the oldest post, currently TTH. I moved the most appropriate posts over but there will always be a few that are a mix between both topics, and it's easy to make a mistake. Also, a few posts about making a new thread were just deleted since they will not make much sense now. Note: @Arauna, you responded to a post above about Allen as if it were about AlanF and related it to the atheism/evolution material, so I moved it over to the "new" topic linked below. The "new" topic now goes back to about January 5 with all the old posts added: https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/51784-monkeys-typewriters-and-evolution/

Good points and good questions, too. I am just working through some of this material myself. Last fall, I clicked a few pages onto my iPhone of several books to check out in full at a later time. These included Wright's (2009) "Inventing God's Law - How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi." The book is partially previewed on Google Books. Some of the other pages of material are only on my iPhone, though. I'm not planning to buy the book. It's at several libraries. I should say that the book appears to break new ground on tying the Mosaic Law (he abbreviates CC, for Covenant Code) to the Laws of Hammurabi (he abbreviates LH). But a book that breaks new ground is also, in part, only one voice against several. So it would be good to acknowledge a few of the other major views about the relationship between CC and LH. Note, too, that LH becomes a kind of shorthand not just for the Laws of Hammurabi exclusively, but also the Laws of Eshnunna and other similar sets of laws with a relationship to LH. One point is that we don't really know the exact dates of either the LH or exactly when the last adjustment was made to the CC either. Another point is that we should expect similarities in both oral traditions, legal needs, and legal practice with respect to the lifestyle of Semitic and Mesopotamian nations. All had similar issues with respect to slavery, marriage, divorce, murder, rape, theft, land, livestock, accidents, etc.. As Wright himself mentions: For example, the Covenant Code, the Laws of Hammurabi, the Laws of Eshnunna, and the Roman Twelve Tables, all have burglary laws that speak about killing a burglar (see chapter 9). These cannot all be related by literary influence. Several of the other points made in comparison to the view of other scholars are not applicable to a faith-based view of the scriptures (textual redaction theories, etc.). Wright makes a distinction between the "do this/do that" (apodictic) laws, and the "if this...then that"(casuistic) laws, and this distinction is useful for his thesis. But you are apparently right, @Gone Fishing, that the 10 commandments themselves stand outside these sets of laws as unique.

It's not about intelligence, Allen. It's about integrity and honesty.

That's basically it. Up until last year, I thought these particular verses represented the only true "intersection" between the two Law codes, so it was pretty easy to dismiss as just a coincidence, anomaly, gloss, etc. But then I saw that Wright took this to the next step. I hadn't realized that there were not just overlapping "coincidental" laws, but that such a large number of the topics of the Laws of Hammurabi, were still in the same order. This speaks to the overall structural similarities between the Mosaic Law and the Laws of Hammurabi, not just some places where the wording happens to match. Here's one place where Wright shows a chart of this structural similarity: This particular chart, however, shows just one of several relationships. But the similarity shown above should be enough to absorb and try to explain first.

Yes. It's the same as an article that Brother C.Aulicino had been working on for years. He had been giving most of these points in a couple of non-outline public talks. I was hoping to find that they had been recorded somewhere, because he has about two hours on this same material. He has collected old books (commentaries, etc) on the subject for years. Excellent points.

Definitely. I see some definite superiority of the Law in many ways, and this area is no exception. Best leave that conversation over there, on the other thread however. (Although I would still like to know about that COJ quote you might have been interested in following up.)

Didn't mean to set this up like a "tease" to drum up interest. Especially if the actual point will turn out to be such a letdown. But I'll continue . . . Many of us probably barely noticed that the first "kernel" of the "Cities of Refuge" laws started out in Exodus 21:12-15, especially in the highlighted portion. (Exodus 21:12-15) 12 “Anyone who strikes a man so that he dies must be put to death. 13 But if he does it unintentionally and the true God lets it happen, I will designate for you a place where he can flee. 14 If a man becomes very angry with his fellow man and he deliberately kills him, the man must die even if you have to take him from my altar. 15 One who strikes his father or his mother must be put to death. But we have two versions to compare for much of Exodus 21. For example, let's start out by comparing two versions, starting in Exodus 21:28-32Â in the way that Wright does: I think a lot of people already know where this is headed, but this is a good place to start. I'll follow up in the next post.

I'm sure that some persons might be fooled into thinking that your "evidence" below must have been some kind of brilliant response that showed your previous false claims about the Egibi Tablets must be true. But anyone who looks this up will see it was a complete evasion, and has absolutely nothing to do with the Egibi tablets. If anyone else had tried the trick you just pulled here, you would accuse them of dishonesty. What made you think no one would notice? First of all your OCR is completely illegible. It's as if you copied a portion of a page from Google Books into a program like OneNote and then used the option to "Copy Text from Image." (Or something similar.) Those types of programs only recognize "Roman-style fonts" and tend to try to read everything in your local language setting, which is likely English. Another thing you have done, AGAIN, is to avoid the title of the book even though you mention page 73. I have pointed out before, as have others, that you often include the title of a book if you think it lends weight to your argument. Sometimes, in fact, you only show the title of a book, sometimes just an image of the book cover, even when the entire contents of the book demolishes your argument. In this case, the title would have given away the fact that you were playing another diversion game here: "The Open Book and the Sealed Book: Jeremiah 32 in its Hebrew and Greek Rescensions" by Andrew G Shead. There is not a shred of evidence in this book that is related to the Egibi tablets. Just for fun, let's look at what Shead was actually saying. By the way, the book is excellent and covers a long known issue, which is this: Jeremiah is about 1/7th longer in the Masoretic Text (M, or MT) than it is in the LXX (G). Jerome, around 400, already had the longer "M" style text and the shorter "LXX" in front of him, and noticed this long before the "M" was finalized between 900 and 1100. Because most Bibles, including the NWT, are based on the Masoretic Hebrew text, the Greek LXX has usually been considered defective, or perhaps it came from a separate abridged version. Of course, it's not just shorter, it's in a different order, and there are times when the meaning is different. It was thought that the Qumram Dead Sea Scrolls discoveries would help, but not enough of Jeremiah was discovered to make a definitive case for the Masoretic Hebrew that we depend upon today. In fact, portions of Jeremiah that were discovered show a decided preference for the LXX even though the DSS were in Hebrew. Shead provides an "apologetic" for the MT (M) wherever he can, but he does a very fair job, I think, in showing that the Greek is likely more original than the Hebrew in many places, showing where even the Syriac version of Jeremiah depends on the LXX.  Here is what your portion of the book actually shows, attached below, and I'll transliterate some of the Greek to make it clearer. Note that "basilei" means "king" and "to" means "the" but does not always require translation into English, much like "los manos" in Spanish, for example, can be translated as "hands" insted of a more stilted "the hands" in some contexts: The complete title in B-S 106' Aeth (and Rahlfs) is [to basilei Nabouchodonosor basilei Babylonos].21 This looks to be a conflation of the only other attested variations of the name: [to basilei Nabouchodonosor] (Arab), and [to Nabouchodonosor basilei Babylonos] (rel.). Elsewhere in Jeremiah, Nebuchadrezzar is named in only three ways, whether in M or G: 'the king of Babylon'; 'Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon'; 'Nebuchadrezzar'. The title found in Arab is unique, though possible in theory, as it is used of Zedekiah (see §3.6.1). I therefore consider it possible that Arab attests the Old Greek, which has been universally harmonized, surviving in addition in the conflation of the B group. Nevertheless, I accept Ziegler's judgment here. [p.73] ------------------ So, it should be obvious that the only differences under discussion here are which manuscripts say: "king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon" or just "king Nebuchadnezzar" or "Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon" or just "Nebuchadnezzar" (without title) or just "king of Babylon" (without specifying Nebuchadnezzar). Notice that not even the "r" in Nebuchadrezzar is under discussion here. So this has nothing to do with the Egibi tablets or any Babylonian tablets at all.

The prediction was that you would see the obvious ridiculousness of your claim (that versions with errors carry more weight than versions with corrections). So I predicted that when you were questioned about this, you would do what you always do, which is to try to make it look like you were right all along through an evasion. So I said: Just a few days ago, back in this same thread, I summarized your method like this: You managed to perfectly fulfill every word of that prediction by not acknowledging your error and using words that completely evaded the questions, and you used words that made it seem like others were wrong an you were right all along, when you said: I would recommend that you begin to address evidence with evidence that is actually related to the questions at hand, instead of evasions. I don't think you are incapable, but each time you do what you just did, it makes it more difficult for anyone interested to take your future posts seriously. Most people will just think you are dishonest.

If you didn't understand my explanation then I was either wrong or I did a lousy job explaining, or something somewhere in between. I looked back through about 10 pages, and didn't find the content from COJ that you quoted. Perhaps you can tell me where it was, or how far back in this thread you think it was. I'll be happy to look at it again. As I recall, you had brought up some scriptures from Jeremiah that might have been "addressed" to me and I know I hadn't responded to all of them yet. Does "o.i." mean "on the Internet"? In Google there's a trick that lets you "subtract" out searches that contain an emphasis on a certain term. For example, I just searched on "587 607 Gentile Times" and got mostly pages that mentioned Jonsson due to the key words. Then I redid the search as "587 607 Gentile Times -Jonsson" and most of those pages were no longer on the first two pages. Some were, especially those that spelled Jonsson wrong, but at least it gave me a new set. Also, if you've looked up Jonsson before, and you're logged in, Google skews the links to include pages and subjects you have looked at before. The best way to get new and interesting material however is to leave out the words that tie it back to jw.org and discussions about JWs. How about the following Google searches: "Neo-Babylonian chronology and artifacts" [or "artefacts"] "cuneiform tablets that help to date Nebuchadnezzar" "site:wikipedia.org Nabonidus and Cyrus" "Jeremiah and Babylonian hegenomy" Not saying you didn't already try these things already, but there are just so many options and variables to choose from.

I am amazed at how easy it was to predict this.

I can't really see why you think originals carry more weight than revised editions. If you, Allen, were to write a book and then you discovered you had made some mistakes that needed to be revised, which of your books would you think carried more weight? Do you really think that scholars believe their mistakes carry more weight then the corrections? Does Furuli think everyone should give more weight to the first version of Volume II of his work on chronology, before he made the revisions to Volume II? Do you think that anyone in the Writing Dept at Bethel thinks that the commentary on Revelation or Ezekiel that was written in 1917 ("The Finished Mystery") carries more weight than our current writings on these books? I know you very likely won't even answer these questions, without the typical evasion you've always utilized in the past, which tells me you know the real answer. Also, you have seen me praise the Watchtower for the greater number of things that I appreciate and about which they must surely be correct. I will never criticize our publications for revisions, only for errors that contradict the Bible, contradict facts, or make false or misleading claims. If we love the Bible, we should all be doing this. It's part of our obligation as Jehovah's Witnesses and as Christians to be humble and admit our faults. To make sure of all things, and hold fast to what is fine. To be noble-minded and "carefully examine" like the Beroeans. To try to be shining examples of honesty and truth. The test the inspired expressions. To make a defense of our hope to anyone who asks. To make our reasonableness known to all men. As you already know, I don't criticize for revisions. Revisions are a good thing.

I accept your apology. Yes, I have 2 books by Raymond Franz. CoC and iSoCF. I assume they are the latest editions. I also purchased a copy of GTR4 a few years ago, but this was after Rolf Furuli sent me his two books. He sent me Vol II for free, after I discussed some issues with Vol I with him. When I worked in Manhattan for 25+ years it was in midtown, just a few blocks from the NYPL research library at 42nd & 5th, where I made photocopies of entire books or at least key pages from almost every reference work that the WTS has quoted from Assyrian/Babylonian/Persian tablets. (Parker & Dubberstein, Sachs & Hunger, etc., etc.) Many of these had to be ordered from different libraries around the country. They never could get me a copy of JQB except on microfilm, and I never ordered it. All of this was well-before Google Books and the availability of so many works on PDF. I don't know that Raymond Franz was ever influenced by COJ, but I have never disputed that he wasn't. Did you make that up - that I had disputed this somewhere? I could not have said either of them were or were not influenced by each other, because I don't know. If either one of them claimed to be influenced by the other, that doesn't change a thing. Whenever you, Allen, read something by anyone, I assume you are 'influenced' in some way, but it doesn't mean that you necessarily believe everything you read. I wouldn't doubt at all that there are faults in their books, but you haven't shown any. And your track record has been something like ZERO so far on being able to back up what you say with facts when it comes to these books. I have never yet heard you make a true claim about the books, and yet I have heard you make false claims about them several times. So I have my doubts you'll finally come through this time, but it still wouldn't make a difference to me. I don't depend on anything in any of their books. (But I do appreciate them for their candor and accuracy in everything I've been able to check out so far.)

So am I. So were many others, including persons who are experts in related fields. So should you be.

I was never that concerned about JQB, and I'm not really that interested in getting volume 2. "Scholar_JW" already proved to me that COJ was correct in his assessment when "Scholar_JW" (Neil) admitted that the best evidence against COJ's summary was in Vol 2, p.208, but wouldn't dare show it. There was already plenty of evidence on the Internet that "Scholar_JW" was not telling the truth, because he had already been thoroughly embarrassed over a decade ago when he attempted that same dishonest claim. I'm also not so concerned about COJ. I don't know what you mean by ideologies, but I absolutely know that your claim about a copy never came from me, whether three years ago or at any time, because I never had a copy, and was never that concerned about it. There are dozens of Biblical reasons to reject the 1914 ideology, I don't need secular reasons. But I know that other people should see the secular reasons, too, because they honestly believe something about the secular evidence that isn't true. I'm also willing to share what I have learned about all the evidence because of how important this idea is, and how dangerous it can be from a Christian's perspective. (see Matthew 24, etc.)