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Actually, I'm pretty sure that Josephus did not mention it, because it was not an ancient Jewish idea. If you have anything on that I'd appreciate knowing where it comes from. And if Josephus had said it, we would not have gotten it from him, anyway. The first known mention of the possibility of man being on the earth exactly 7,000 years appears in Pseudo-Philo which would have been written about the same time as the Greek Scriptures, and this would make it contemporaneous with Josephus and Philo, but neither one wrote the work. They think it might have started out in Aramaic/Hebrew but is only known in Latin, although a Hebrew translation was made of the Latin. Of course, this has nothing to do with the length of the creative days. It says the following in chapter 28, in a kind of "creation" account ( http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/bap/bap44.htm ): Hearken now, ye that dwell on the earth, even as they that sojourned therein prophesied before me, when they saw this hour, even before the earth was corrupted, that ye may know the prophecies appointed aforetime, all ye that dwell therein. 7. Behold now I see flames that burn not, and I hear springs of water awaked out of sleep, and they have no foundation, neither do I behold the tops of the mountains, nor the canopy of the firmament, but all things unappearing and invisible, which have no place whatsoever, and although mine eye knoweth not what it seeth, mine heart shall discover that which it may learn (or say). . . . And when the foundation was laid, I beheld, and from that spring there was stirred up as it were a boiling froth, and behold, it changed itself as it were into another foundation; and between the two foundations, even the upper and the lower, there drew near out of the light of the invisible place as it were forms of men, and they walked to and fro: and behold, a voice saying: These shall be for a foundation unto men and they shall dwell therein 7000 years. 9. And the lower foundation was a pavement and the upper was of froth, and they that came forth out of the light of the invisible place, they are those that shall dwell therein, 1 and the name of that man is <Adam>. And it shall be, when he hath (or they have) sinned against me and the time is fulfilled, that the spark shall be quenched and the spring shall cease, and so they shall be changed. The Talmud from sometime around the 2nd to 5th centuries also mentions 6,000 years with chaos during the last thousand, but this was based on the length of the entire creative week, not that each day was 7,000 years long, but usually that all things were literally created at the beginning in literal days, but that this time count started from creation, and since then "a day is 1,000 years" so that every thousand years since then has been part of the creative week starting with Sunday, so that the 7th millennium is a rest day, a sabbath. (Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashana 31a and Sanhedrin 97a). I think there are about 222 years left before "Year 6000" in the common A.M. Jewish calendar. An entry in Wikipedia called "Year 6000" gives some of the sources. In the book "Life of Adam and Eve" the book Testament of Adam is quoted where the end and was prophesied by Adam in chapter 3, verse 5. A book on the subject words it like this: Next Adam predicts the Flood because of the daughters of Cain 'who killed your brother Abel because of passion for your sister Lebuda, since sins have been created through your mother, Eve.' The end of the world will be 6,000 years after the Flood. That was actually a so-called Christian book, at least it was redacted in all the known versions to be a Christian book, and the end of the world referred to Christ coming. In the Ethiopic version the 6,000 year prediction for Christ is missing. Furthermore, thou must know, O my son, Seth, behold a Flood shall come and shall wash the whole earth because of the children of Kâyal (Cain), the murderer, who slew his brother through jealousy, because of his sister Lûd. And after the Flood and many weeks the latter days shall come, and everything shall be completed, and his time shall come and fire shall consume everything which is found before God, and the earth shall be sanctified, and the Lord of Lords shall walk about on it." A Although the 6,000 year prophecy is gone, there is a mention in the verses leading up to it where God tells Adam that even though he sinned and would have to die that God would come down to earth in flesh and die on the Cross in five and one-half days to save him. And besides [these things] God spake unto me, saying, "Be not sorrowful, O Adam, for thou didst wish to become a god and didst transgress my command. Behold, I will stablish thee, not at this present, but after a few days." And again He spake unto me, saying, "I am God Who made thee to go forth from the Garden of Joy into the earth, which shall shoot forth thorns and brambles, and thou shalt dwell therein. Bend thy back, and make thy knees p. 247 to totter in old age, and I will make thy flesh food for the worms. And after five days and half a day1 I will have compassion upon thee, and shew thee mercy in the abundance of my compassion and my mercy. And I will come down into thy house, and I will dwell in thy flesh, and for thy sake I will be pleased to be born like an [ordinary] child. And for thy sake I will be pleased to walk in the market place. And for thy sake I will be pleased to fast forty days. And for thy sake I will be pleased to accept baptism. And for thy sake I will be pleased to endure suffering. And for thy sake I will be pleased to hang on the wood of the Cross. All these things [will I do] for thy sake, O Adam." To Him be praise, and majesty, and dominion, and glory, and worship, and hymns, with His Father and the Holy Spirit from this time forward and for ever and ever. Amen. In several apocalyptic books (non-canonical) a day is 1,000 years, so this is interpreted to mean that Christ would appear 5,500 years after Adam. Again, however, these were parts of predictions about Christ's first appearance and second appearance. The Ethiopic probably was trying to work out a second appearance of Christ within 500 years of Jesus' birth. It was not about 7,000 year creative days. The 6,000 years of mankind with a 1,000 year millennial reign idea began popping again up in many places after Christopher Columbus used it, and later Martin Luther and many other reformers.

It's a curious idea. There was a lot of speculation about this 6,000 year cut-off for many years as you are aware. The idea that the angels would have known the exact time of the 6,000 years seems so obvious. For the speculators, it's odd that this fact escaped their notice. But this idea is also interesting because for many years the Watchtower taught just the opposite, that we could know the beginning and not the end. In fact the beginning of the tribulation was timed to 1914, with a break in the tribulation that would last either a few months or a few years, and now, of course, until nearly just before Armageddon. Another thought to ponder is that this whole idea that there was some significance to 6,000 years or 7,000 years came to us from Christendom. Perhaps no two creative days were the same length, perhaps some a few years, some a few million years. The Bible doesn't say they how long they were. And the idea that the 7th day would be 7,000 years is never in the Bible either. It was a thought that came to us from "speculators" in Christendom. We have absolutely no Biblical reason to think it might be some exact number of years divisible by 1,000. We don't even have scriptural reasons to say that the millennium must happen within the 7th day. What if the 7th creative day, the day of rest, is 7,326 years long. But no matter how long it is, it doesn't seem likely that its length would determine any portion of the time of judgment day, whether it be an early judgment beginning with a "temple inspection" or the final day of judgment. Remember that the warning about coming as a surprise also referred to the day of judgment that swept upon the people of Noah's day who weren't paying attention, and it was the day of judgment that swept upon the people of Lot's day who weren't paying attention, and it would also refer to the day of judgment that swept upon Jerusalem, when very few were paying attention. (Mark 13:35) . . .Keep on the watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, . . . This was not about the tribulation specifically or some invisible presence, it was about the time when the master comes in judgment, right?

I'm happy to see Ann O'maly engage in the conversation about 539. From what I have seen, she is much more well-read on the subject than I am. I may have some questions for her, too. But I think this other portion of your post was directed at something that I wrote: I would agree that there is always a reason that a person is disfellowshipped and it's usually something like what you describe. The process usually works, and the more often than not, the person disfellowshipped understands that they were in the wrong and the congregation was right to take action. This is how I have always seen it work in a congregation setting. I have agreed with every congregational case I have seen, even though I have heard about some that I would have disagreed with, as would most of us. But I think the information you are are probably missing is that, from 1979 to 1982, there was a completely different style of justice inside of Brooklyn Bethel. 50 were dismissed in one day about 2 years before I got there. When I first arrived, Brother Knorr was using a style very much like Rutherford before him. The method was to talk to the entire Bethel family and rant and berate brothers who crossed him. Or, at breakfast, to announce dismissals right there on the spot for stealing, adultery, fornication, etc. Not a week would go by without something like this. If you saw an older brother doing hard sweaty work in an unlikely place for an old man (like a bindery or a hot laundry job, or something that seemed demeaning), there was always a story behind it, and it was usually about something he had said that crossed up against a more powerful brother's ego. When Knorr died, several wonderful older brothers (like CQ, the editor of the Awake! magazine, for example) started getting invited back to Bethel after having been dismissed in the previous 5 to 10 years or more. Sometimes, even their adult children or relatives were also now allowed to work at Bethel. Persons were suddenly recalled from their factory and toilet-cleaning jobs and put back to work in the responsible positions they had held during Knorr's administration. Even A.H.MacMillan, one of the persons imprisoned with Rutherford in 1918, the person who wrote Faith on the March, was berated and humiliated for daring to have the audacity to write a book. (Even though --or perhaps because-- it was a book that everyone wanted and loved.) So there was a mindset at Bethel about justice that was quite different from a congregation setting. It had developed from 1917 to 1977. A lot of the talk at Bethel from overseers reflected the language of the army, and those in the "rank and file" often saw discipline that seemed to follow army patterns. So it was not a surprise to see a kind of bunker mentality and "military tribunal" style judgments -- especially when "apostasy" was suspected. These were usually quick, on the spot, judgments. I have to admit that I paid close attention to what was going on because I knew that I had associated with persons like Brother Schroeder, Brother Sydlik and Brother Swingle who I was afraid might also find themselves on the chopping block, too. (Brother Sydlik was also serving time as an overseer relegated to the factory, the only Governing Body member assigned there, and there was a Knorr-Sydlik story behind it.) Sydlik and I had talked about chronology issues, and 1914-talk was one of the things that F.Franz was cracking down on based on comments at 'morning worship.' Sydlik, in fact, warned me that "we" (meaning he and I, both) had to watch what we say from now on because the "tongue can start a wildfire." Schroeder had "apostate" views about 1914 and the "generation" and had even spread them at his talks he gave on his trips to other countries. I was reporting directly to him on research projects at this time. He knew he could be in trouble himself, but protected himself by taking over as the prosecutor, and setting up actual "tribunal" committees to handle interrogations that only resulted in dismissals and disfellowshippings at his say-so. People joked that he was using "Star Chamber" techniques, and literally offering "plea deals" for information about higher-ups. Neither my roommate or I ever got one of these interrogations, but 4 of my friends did, and about 10 of my roommate's friends did. No one was joking when they called them "Inquisitions." Altogether, I don't know how many recanted, or finally got disfellowshipped, or just dismissed or just demoted, but everyone seemed to get a different deal. Schroeder was in a flurry of activity and I had to leave several times when tribunals reported back to him. But in any group, there are always going to be some ego-driven persons who pride themselves on their so-called knowledge, and spread beliefs, or reveal things about others, not out of concern or love, but out of maliciousness, or to cause contentions and division. I think that it's probably very difficult for most of us to distinguish whether there is any difference between the kinds of doctrinal differences we might discuss with others. For example, let's say that one person here, I won't say who , appears to be going off the deep end about all the issues surrounding 1914. He claims that it is because he sees the possibility that we are taking a false step in terms of following the Christian teachings of not serving for a date along with the rest of the counsel in Matthew 24 & 25, or not producing works motivated by fear of an imminent judgment, or not being presumptuous in proposing to others that Jehovah has blessed us with specific revealed knowledge about the times and seasons, etc., etc., etc. But let's say that another person, who might have also proposed some beliefs that are different from the doctrines of his fellow Witnesses, claims that he knows for sure that the last days are over in 2034, the 144,000 will all be picked within a few years of that point, and that by 2054, the judgment day begins. Those two examples might both appear just as equally "apostate." At the very least they both could appear to be equally motivated by persons who believe they are better or smarter than the Governing Body. In fact, the 2034 proposal might seem to be a little less apostate, because it is slightly more in line with the general teachings of JWs, and it surely won't be that far off anyway. And the one who wants to drop the 1914+generation formula altogether is hoping for something much more drastic and disturbing because it, to some, attacks the core of our ministry. So, I understand and expect the response to this that I have been receiving -- or even worse. I just hope that people will look into it and share their own reasons in defense of their faith and hope. Although you appear not to believe it, I will accept the Biblical evidence over the secular evidence any day. So far, I still see that we (Watch Tower publications) are stuck on pieces of the secular evidence, and have been using this secular evidence to try to override the Biblical evidence and Biblical counsel. I think it's always important to look more deeply into any issue like that, even to look into how it started and why we have held onto a tradition that positions itself in such a way. But I understand completely that most of us won't see it the same way. I certainly don't expect any accolades or respect for bringing up the subject. But I do think that for reasons of conscience, concern and love for the brotherhood, and faith in Jehovah, that it's important to discuss it in a serious manner. (Philippians 4:8) 8 Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are of serious concern, whatever things are righteous, whatever things are chaste, whatever things are lovable, whatever things are well-spoken-of, whatever things are virtuous, and whatever things are praiseworthy, continue considering these things. Â

Threadmeister? Great. I hereby rule that no one can make more than two posts in this thread containing lyrics from My Fair Lady. So show me you understand, and, if you did it, then just you wait because I know the street where you live, and with a little bit of luck, we'll carry on without you. But right now, I've got a customer to face.

I can't tell if you are just making up things as diversions. Should I assume this when you make statements that are not backed up with evidence? For example, I have COJ's book as a PDF and just searched through it for anything about Israel/Palestine/1946/1967 and it looks like there is no evidence for what you claimed previously. Do you have any evidence? I mentioned this already, and rather than respond, you changed the subject to how COJ insists that people believe the Watchtower was associated with WIlliam Miller. So I look up every instance of William Miller in his book, and, as I've come to expect by now, there was nothing there that ties William Miller to the Watchtower. He merely mentions Miller in the list of persons and groups that are part of the history of various Gentile Times doctrines. So how can COJ be insisting on something that he doesn't even mention is connected with the Watchtower? Again, do you have any evidence? Or am I supposed to assume that you made this up? I have found closer connections in our own publications, than in COJ's book about a relationship with the movement of William Miller: *** jv chap. 4 p. 40 The Great Apostasy Develops *** In the United States, William Miller predicted the return of Christ in visible form in 1843 or 1844. The German theologian J. A. Bengel set the date for 1836; . . . Such efforts to keep on the watch served to awaken many to the prospect of our Lord’s return. Russell wrote some interesting things about Miller as I said. As I also said, he did not want to be associated directly with William Miller or tied in any way to the failure and disappointment of Miller. But he did speak of the work of Miller as being foreordained through prophecy, and therefore the references to various dates with respect to Miller as fulfilling Bible prophecy, such as 1829, 1844, and later 1859, too, although this date was dropped early because it had referred solely to the work of Barbour as the vehicle of the Midnight Cry in the parable of the 10 virgins. Here is some of what Russell wrote and published, among other things, about Miller, in Volume 3, Studies in the Scriptures, p.86,87: The May 1883 Watchtower contained the portion you quoted, and some other points: The above article was written by J.C.Sunderlin, and only approved and published by Russell. But the most important connection to Millerism was what Russell himself had described a couple years earlier. The article below is from October 1881, and was the very important announcement that the "door was shut." No more persons would be chosen for the 144,000 as of October 3rd, 1881. So, evidently, the initial tie-in to Millerism was that Miller's movement was even more integral to the leading of God's people, and that these movements were of God. Miller and Barbour were both instruments for leading God's people. The midnight cry was made through Barbour, a Millerite from the beginning of that movement. The parable of the 10 virgins was not about an invitation to all persons, or even all Christians, but had a specific fulfillment from those "virgins" who were associated with the Millerite and Advent movements. And the difference was all in their response to Miller's and Barbour's chronology, nothing else. Foolish virgins were of the Millerite "class" who almost had it right but then gave up on the time element (chronology) out of fear of being disappointed again. And the prudent virgins were from that same class of Millerites, but who listened to Barbour about his chronology. (Initially, Russell accepted Barbour's chronology that claimed the "midnight cry" started going out in 1859 when Barbour first understood that this "midnight" was the halfway point between 1844 and 1874. Russell himself had not picked up on this midnight cry until he became associated with Barbour around 1877.) Baptist preachers, like Miller, do not ever call themselves "Father" as a religious title. Neither do Second Adventists. Bible Students today agree that it was due to his being the "Father" of the Second Advent movement, so it was out of respect for his continued leadership of 50,000 or so Second Adventists even after the failure of 1843 and 1844.

The Watchtower associated themselves with the "William Miller" movement by accepting the 1844 date as a date given in Bible prophecy. This does not mean that Russell was a Second Adventist, or even wanted to be associated with William Miller. He was embarrassed at their date failure, and was hesitant to admit that his fascination with the Second Adventists was primarily about their chronology. As he studied he found that he did not agree with the Adventists on a lot of things, but he always remained absorbed with their chronology. When Russell published Watch Towers that called William Miller "Father Miller" he was offering unnecessary respect to the man. But he claimed that the Millerites showed themselves to be foolish virgins whose lamps had run out of oil because they stopped setting dates.

I had no idea that COJ was into legitimizing the Jewish wars of 1947 and 1967. Sounds pretty strange to me. And of course I had no idea that he was trying to deceive R.Franz into using the accepted timeline to get him to legitimize. I had no idea what you meant previously by saying that I had the same ideology as COJ. And of course, I didn't know that this was the reason that I hadn't answered your simple question yet. Seriously, though, although I know that it's a common belief about Israel among Bible scholars and pretend Bible scholars, I did not know that COJ got into this, too. Where did you find this? In spite of @Nana Fofana's experience, I can't find anything about COJ when I look for his full name plus 1967 war, 1947 Palestine, etc.

I think this is usually true. If I were asked about my activity here, and it's bound to happen, I can say that I did what I thought was right at the time (which I do) but that I can do whatever it takes to make amends. I have seen this stuff go on for 40 years, and I am a very patient man . . . I'm a very gentle manEven-tempered and good-natured who you never hear complain Who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every veinA patient man am I, down to my fingertipsThe sort who never would, never couldLet an insulting remark escape his lips A very gentle man Of course, sometimes the brothers who have to do the questioning might have a completely different idea of motivations or reasonableness. Galileo could avoid disfellowshipping by just admitting that he was wrong, but it's hard to put all that stuff back in the telescope once it's been seen. It takes a lot of humility to recant when you think someone is asking you to: "Admit that 2+2=5, because Jehovah says so!!" You just have to be able to empathize, put yourself in their shoes, and remember that the roles could so easily have been reversed if they had had the same experiences you had, and you had the same experiences they had.

I can tell what happened here. Even though I wasn't familiar with this supposed controversy and had never read about it in COJ's book, it seemed obvious that you missed the actual point of the statement you quoted above, and which I highlighted in red. COJ did not word this statement very well, but you can catch his meaning perfectly from the context you provided. I'll add a little more context from that section of the book so you can see if this makes sense: So COJ has already explicitly stated that the Society does indeed argue that Thermistocles died about 471/70. (He also points out that it's an argument the Society gets, at least indirectly, through Christendom, originating with a Jesuit theologian and an archbishop in the 17th century.) COJ's point here is that the Watch Tower Society leaves out information which would show what the real point of the source material is. As you saw from a previous question you asked, the Society did exactly the same thing in another place in the "Insight" book when they claimed they were giving the "Jewish understanding" from Soncino, but left out just enough words to hide the fact that they were only pretending to give the Jewish understanding. In this case COJ is saying that although the WTS was quoting Diodorus Siculus in support of Thermistocles death in 471, they were actually quoting source material that never claimed anything about a death in 471, but another event in his life that must have happened well before he died anyway. So it should have been worded: I've learned that it doesn't take much to catch the Society in these bits of "scholastic dishonesty." It's hard to say whether it's incompetence or deliberate or they just read with a kind of "wishful thinking" that some secular sources might somehow be found to offer support. I didn't know this particular one at all, but I am very disappointed that it keeps happening. I'm not sure if COJ ever noticed the previous one we talked about (the "Jewish understanding") but I can see that COJ has seen several more of these examples, and I know I have seen several too that COJ probably never deals with in his book. It turns out, however, that COJ was right in this case, and the Watch Tower Society was wrong. This was from your post about Grayson's book. (Which is excellent, btw) The reason this book review uses the term "Series" like this is to avoid the repetition of the longer phrase, "Babylonian Chronicle Series." The book itself has some very good information about why 539 is no better a date to call "absolute" than any other date in the Neo-Babylonian chronology, and why the supposed break at 539 is arbitrary. The reviewer alludes to it, saying: In Grayson's book, what was meant by this is that there is a 50 year gap in the Series after 539, but excellent coverage in the 50+ years prior. (The book review you mentioned takes exception to Grayson calling ALL of the chronicles the "Babylonian Chronicle Series" especially because she sees no real continuity between ALL the chronicles in this "Series" especially due to the long break in the eras covered.)

There you have it!

Apologies if this sounds too blunt, but that is simply a false statement. Sorry.

Congratulations, seriously!!

You do realize that we got this doctrine from Christendom, right?

Seriously, I would be happy to try to address your question. Just ask it! I might not know the answer but I am happy to learn, especially if it means I get the excuse to do some more research. Still not sure why you appear to obsess about COJ's findings. If he found something, I'd rather go to the source of the evidence he found, not go second-hand through him. If you have a question about what other scholars have found, and their different conclusions, that might be interesting. Do you plan on being specific about any of this? I'm getting the impression that you must want people to think you are obsessed with COJ. Why be so concerned about him? This is exactly like having 1,000 persons tell you that World War II started in 1914, but you want to believe it started in 1894, so you'd obsess about the fact that just one of those 1,000 persons had rabies. Ignore COJ. I think the only reason a person would try to associate the Neo-Babylonian chronology with COJ is because it probably plays to an audience who don't realize that COJ had nothing to do with confirming or disconfirming the Neo-Babylonian timeline. OK! That's a start. I take back everything I said above. That's a real question. When I break it down, however, I see that you have disqualified it from being a sincere question by adding the phrase: "since you keep insisting the chronology mentioned in COJ's book is FACT." I have never insisted that the chronology mentioned in COJ's book is FACT. I don't know that it is FACT. You are the one who is always concerned about COJ. I don't need COJ to learn about what he discovered. This should be about evidence not a man called "COJ." But I can try to remove the distractions from your question and see if I can understand what you really intended to ask. You can tell me if you think I am guessing correctly. I'll try to do this later though. Right now my full attention is being totally eclipsed by a separate distraction.

Your last paragraph there is preaching to the choir. I agreed 100% with @Arauna on those sentiments. But I disagree that we, (in representing and promoting the Watchtower's doctrines), should so slavishly put faith in the secular date 539/8 as if it is some holy grail that stands by itself. In truth, the evidence for 539/8 is excellent, but it really is NOT as good as the evidence that Nebuchadnezzar's "18th/19th" corresponds to 587/6. (Sorry about the slashes.) I like something that @Gone Fishing said, about how we rely on secular chronology for a doctrine that seems so important to a lot of us here. What you said about 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 is actually what opened my eyes to finally look at the evidence myself. And that's why I blame-shifted and projected the same useful counsel right back onto Russell himself. Why would any doctrine for Christians need to be based on a secular date like 539/8? Our 1914 doctrine REQUIRES that we put slavish faith in this secular date, in spite of everything we are willing to denigrate about secular dates, scientists, archaeologists. I have no problem at all pointing to the times we have been living in since 1914 as evidence that we need God's Kingdom to be manifested for all mankind. It's the only solution, and it is all the more proved to be the only solution, as man gets himself further and further into trouble. The more advantages and knowledge we have for solving problems, the worse things get, based on greed and the human condition. Sorry . . . .now who's preaching to the choir? You also asked that question about "What preaching campaign did he . . . found?" I don't think he would have had patience to work on this from 1968 to 1975 if he was really looking to start something himself. Of course, I can see how ego might have come into play, but I don't know him, and I've heard that he was one of those who likes a low profile. It's easier for me to picture someone who likes to do research as a person who wants to keep a low profile, because that's also the way I am in front of people in the congregation. Probably true of most nerdy types. He must have respected the brothers in Brooklyn enough to want to ask the full question correctly, dotting all the i's and crossing all t's (assuming they have those letters in cuneiform). I'm sure he thought the brothers would be interested because it was obvious that what he was learning was very relevant to the 1914 doctrine. I talked to two brothers on the Aid Book project who said they already knew what was coming even before they had seen what COJ had sent. They said they could guess what was in it, and had known themselves since the 1960's. But both of these brothers thought it better to just discuss it only with trusted friends. By 1980 every researcher associated with the 1969 "Chronology" article in the Aid Book was under suspicion, and most were dismissed from Bethel before the end of 1980. But they remained elders and special pioneers because this is what they really wanted. It wasn't until someone came around to disfellowship one of them that he was forced out, not because he wanted to be disfellowshipped. From what I have read, it's the same with R.Franz. He wanted to stay in the brotherhood, and in his congregation, and had nothing against any and nothing against the Society, and no reason to "badmouth" it. It seems that in both cases, the books they wrote were published only after they believed there was false information being spread. In a related case, when I was at Bethel, I knew a few of the proofreaders especially because they often needed reference books to look up exact quotes, even for translating to other languages. When I heard that 4 of them were under questioning, 2 married couples, I saw one brother's wife trying to hide tears at lunchtime. When I told the brother that I heard the rumor, he said it was tough but, fortunately, Brother Sydlik had said he thought it would be OK for them because as he supposedly said "I can tell that you and your wife really love Jehovah, and that's why you don't really have anything to worry about." By the next morning, I had learned that it was later on that same afternoon the previous day that they had learned they were all being disfellowshipped. But within hours, the rumor had surfaced that they must not have been just apostates but must have also been "swingers" who changed marriage partners, and that the men must have also been homosexuals. I was appalled by how fast those two rumors spread. Later we discovered that one of the wives was not disfellowshipped, but somehow that didn't stop the ugly rumors from being stated as solid facts by then. My point is that none of the brothers I knew who had been either involved or semi-involved in this apostasy had really wanted to leave and start anything on their own.

What you quoted above your question has nothing to do with COJ. I don't even know what you mean by "this is what COJ" did. Did what? I don't dismiss it at all. All I am saying is that I have looked at the evidence. And of course I don't think ANYTHING is centered on 587/6. It just happens to coincide with Nebuchadnezzar's 18th/19th year based on the same evidence you use for saying that Cyrus captured Babylon in 539. The evidence makes me think both these dates are correct, but nothing is "centered" on either of them. There has been a kind of obsession with COJ here. I would guess that most of the persons who have studied the evidence never heard of COJ. I certainly don't need to rely on anything he said to understand the evidence for the Neo-Babylonian timeline. What you list here are not questions. They are not even attached to any ideas. Going back to questions that people in the 1800's and early 1900's had is like saying we should ignore all the new and updated doctrines of the Watch Tower Society and just focus on things that Russell didn't understand. You remind me here of those JW opposers who just throw things out there like: Pyramidology. Miracle Wheat? The Solon Society. 1844? Rose Ball. Russell's father married Russell's wife's mother? There is no burden on any of us to get into those topics unless they are being used to make an actual point related to the topic. So if you would like to ask a real question, or show what the evidence was and how the question from the 1800's was already resolved and why you think that the resolution isn't good enough, then we have something to discuss. But you seem unwilling to do anything more than tack up some cryptic pseudo-questions. I'm more concerned with why anyone would need to fall back on such weak tactics. I'm guessing that you already know the answer to that. We will certainly miss you. I don't care about defending COJ or concerning myself with anyone's obsession about him. Pretending that these questions center around COJ seems disingenuous unless you truly don't know any better. I believe that you are aware than most all of the questions that early writers had on the subject have already been resolved. You probably know about books such as Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Albert Kirk Grayson, so I am sure you already know the answer. Still, if you really have a question, form it as one. Ask it! Say what you believe it would do to the timeline of the Neo-Babylonians. Show the evidence for it. No one can discuss a question that has no evidence for it. Or perhaps you are aware that the evidence is not valid. That's why I gave that ridiculous analogy to what kind of proposal one can make with tablet data - assuming no one will check it against other evidence. I literally could propose that absurd theory that the Neo-Babylonian timeline is 40,000 years long. I can show some evidence for it, too. I could start with a tablet dated to Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, and I can show another tablet dated to Nebuchadnezzar's 17th year. Then I merely assume that these were two different Nebuchadnezzar's and we therefore "know" that these two different kings must have reigned at least 37+17 years = 54 years. Then I find another tablet for Nebuchadnezzar's 17th year and assume that this is another Nebuchadnezzar and know that these three different Nebuchadnezzars ruled for at least a total of 37+17+17 = 71 years, and so on, ad infinitum, or at least until I've done this with 2,000 different tablets until I reach 40,000 years. Of course, we know that the Egibi data on many of these very same tablets will contradict all my supposed evidence. This is why you have to show your question and/or your proposal and/or your evidence, or else people will know that you don't have anything serious. Then ask it; no one is stopping you.

In the last book, Josephus wrote on the subject, he said that the time from the destruction of Jerusalem up to the release of the Jews from Babylon was 50 years not 70. But no one is relying on Josephus for the final say on this. He was not a contemporary even if he had access to some of the contemporary records. There is far too much evidence on the ground. We don't need Josephus even though he also ended up agreeing with the Biblical and secular evidence about this period. You should expect a lot of polemical material as Judaism saw itself competing with Christianity during the periods in which the Talmud was written. I agree about the Kabbalah and Zohar. In fact, most religious Jews would agree, too. Parts of it remind me of the Pyramidology which was gaining widespread popularity in Russell's day. Rutherford finally associated Pyramidology with Satanism (saying that Satan was behind the building of the Great Pyramid in order to fool Jehovah's people). I believe that all three of these ideas are mistaken. There are different forms of Judaism, but I have never known even one to call the Talmud the 'holy book.' The kabbalah is most definitely not thought of as the "most holy book" by religious Jews. I took 7 semesters of Hebrew in college and most of them were taught by reformed rabbis. All of them dismissed the kabbalah as foolishness. I hired an orthodox rabbi for six months as a programmer and we often spoke about these topics. He says that no one in his branch of Judaism pays any attention to the kabbalah. If you look up 'holy books' 'Judaism' on Google the Talmud does not show up in the lists on all the major Judaism sites. If you look up 'most holy book' 'kabbalah' you will find a few books antagonistic to Judaism that make this fake claim. The closest you might get is the idea that the Zohar is considered the most holy book of some who believe in Kabbalah as a kind of religion. But it's a study of mysticism that most Jews reject, or at least don't take seriously. It's a lot like saying that most Christians believe that their daily horoscope is the most holy book of the Christian religion. Yes, and usually it's a quick rebuff, but not always. My brother went to a Brooklyn congregation while at Bethel, and they do not even try to work their Jewish territories the way you seem to work seriously with persons of Muslim faith. It is usually just a matter of looking for non-Jews. But some are very receptive. I personally have never been able to do more than just talk, but I have even seen experiences of more than one who have become Witnesses. The Soncino commentaries are in the Bethel Library and were the favorite of people in the Writing Department who had tried to study some Hebrew. Different authors were responsible for different translations and commentaries, a bit like the Anchor Bible commentaries. Of course, the writers are only interested in their take on the Torah and Haftorahs, not any of the other books that Soncino commentaries can cover.

What's with the red herring? Your entire post was completely unrelated to what you were saying and asking before. It's as if I responded to what you said here by quoting a long treatise about how Rolex watches are made. Yes, the Jewish calendar is based on the idea that the "world" including Adam, was created in 3761 BCE. We say it was 4026 BCE, which is only different by 265 years. It's surprisingly close. And yes, some Jewish Bible traditions are based on interpretations that are different form ours. But it doesn't matter, because none of the dates mentioned in the Soncino commentaries are related in any way to the A.M. system of Jewish dating. You must have recognized that when you saw that the 13th year of Josiah was given in BCE dating, not A.M., and it was only 21 years different from the Watchtower's. I'm sure you had your reasons. But if you intended to correct this deficiency, I'm interested.

Good question. It reminds me of when a letter was written to Russell about the fact that there was no zero year. Russell answered the question and decided that we don't really know, but he would rather believe that there must have been one because if you count from 606 and other BC dates, this is how you reach 1874 and 1914, for example. It's kind of an embarrassing answer to have put in the Watch Tower for 100 years of posterity to look at. Of course, since then we discovered that the "questioner" was correct all along, and Russell was wrong, so we ultimately had to change the destruction date from 606 to 607. It took us until about 1943 to finally admit it, decades after it was pointed out and rejected. The problem is that Russell pretended he was wise in a fleshly way rather than humbly looking into the evidence. It's fine to be foolish in the sense of being humble and accepting that we don't NEED such worldly knowledge, and we therefore never get puffed up with our supposed knowledge. But when you base half your doctrines on secular dates, as Russell did, you are stuck in a trap of trying to show that you are wise in a fleshly way. Russell tried this and ended up "boasting" in knowledge that turned out not even to be true. If you would like to read the way Jonsson frames it, you can see below that I just grabbed this from a pdf version of his book. He claims he was a pioneer who was challenged by one of his Bible studies. The actual typewritten manuscript was collecting dust on a shelf in an office just outside the Bethel Library for a couple years. In 1978, I heard it referred to as "that treatise from the elder in Sweden." This next long quote is from his book: It was in 1968 that the present study began. At the time, I was a “pioneer” or full-time evangelist for Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the course of my ministry, a man with whom I was conducting a Bible study challenged me to prove the date the Watch Tower Society had chosen for the desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, that is 607 B.C.E. He pointed out that all historians marked that event as having occurred about twenty years later, in either 587 or 586 B.C.E. I was well aware of this, but the man wanted to know the reasons why historians preferred the latter date. I indicated that their dating surely was nothing but a guess, based on defective ancient sources and records. Like other Witnesses, I assumed that the Society’s dating of the desolation of Jerusalem to 607 B.C.E. was based on the Bible and therefore could not be upset by those secular sources. However, I promised the man I would look into the matter. As a result, I undertook a research that turned out to be far more extensive and thoroughgoing than I had expected. It continued periodically for several years, from 1968 until the end of 1975. By then the growing burden of evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date forced me reluctantly to conclude that the Watch Tower Society was wrong. Thereafter, for some time after 1975, the evidence was discussed with a few close, research-minded friends. Since none of them could refute the evidence demonstrated by the data I had collected, I decided to develop a systematically composed treatise on the whole question which I determined to send to the headquarters of the Watch Tower Society at Brooklyn, New York. That treatise was prepared and sent to the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1977. The present work, which is based on that document, was revised and expanded during 1981 and then published in a first edition in 1983. During the years that have passed since 1983, many new finds and observations relevant to the subject have been made, and the most important of these have been incorporated in the last two editions. The seven lines of evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date presented in the first edition, for example, have now been more than doubled.

Well, this is something new and refreshing. Someone appears to be willing to discuss the actual issues at hand. Unfortunately nearly all these issues had been brought up before by a certain @AllenSmith , and the answers are still the same as were given before. I would say that of course, yes, the historical assigned dates CAN be compromised by historian's writings, or mistaken. This is one of the reasons you look for several different independent lines of evidence. In this case all the different independent lines of contemporary evidence all point to the same thing: 587/586 BCE for Jerusalem's destruction. The evidence is just as powerful, and in some ways more powerful, than the evidence for 539, which the Watchtower has called "absolute" and "assured." That's the problem with trying to punch holes in half-a-dozen independent lines of evidence. It's the same as saying that the evidence for 539 is potentially compromised or mistaken, except that we need that date in order to have a starting point to manipulate the earlier date. So we're kind of trapped: all the evidence that we are accepting is the same as the evidence that destroys our theory. The best we could ever hope for is that no one would have ever noticed the evidence. And for the most part, that has worked just fine, because very few Witnesses will look into this kind of research, even when -- or especially when -- it becomes evident that it creates conflicts with our strongly entrenched traditions. You are talking about Nebuchadnezzar I, II, III, and IV. These are well understood. Also, any kings that ruled less than a year have no effect on the timeline. That's the beauty of having half-a-dozen independent lines of evidence that also interact smoothly and support each other. It turns out that ALL the evidence still creates only one timeline that fits. There aren't even like two or three top choices. One of the Nebuchadnezzars you speak of was not even part of the Neo-Bablonian timeline. He reigned hundreds of years outside of the timeline we are concerned about. And the other two are outside the part of the timeline we care about (and reigned only a few months each). Besides, the Watchtower already accepts the Neo-Babylonian timeline if they ever mention that the date 539 is accurate. If it's accurate, then it's because we are admitting that the Neo-Babylonian timelline is accurate. If we say that 587/6 is NOT accurate, then we are saying that 539 is not accurate. The argument you are making could be made about anything. Why question if there were only four Nebuchadnezzars? Why not propose that 2,000 different tablets that mention Nebuchadnezzars refer to 2,000 different kings named Nebuchanezzar? If all of them referred to a different Nebuchadnezzar, you would have to ADD all the regnal years from every tablet in such a case. This would also mean that (since year 20 is the average regnal year on these tablets) the Neo-Babylonian timeline was about 20 x 2000 or 40,000 years long. From your vantage point, as an opposer of the evidence, you could surmise anything you wanted about the evidence. The other points you enumerated are not valid because you have no right to use any BCE dates for comparison if you don't accept the dates of the Neo-Babylonian period. You should never even use the date 539 or 538, if you don't really accept the chronology evidence that got you there. Just throwing out some questions, and claiming things are "perceived" when they really aren't perceived the way you say is a good way to try to poke holes. But it's meaningless unless you have an alternative theory that fits ALL the evidence, or at least tries to fit all the evidence. Then, to really test if that theory works with ALL the evidence, you put it out there and see if someone can find any contradictions in your proposal. I'm sure you have heard the expression "blowing smoke." It refers to the tactic of just throwing anything out there and hoping that it will stick. [It's not really a mixed metaphor, it just looks like one.] It's done without a concern about what it does to the rest of the evidence, or if it creates impossible contradictions. That's why you haven't really poked holes until you can hypothesize what it would mean as an alternative.

That's actually called UPTOWN Charlotte. [Edited to add the following response in response to a contorted-face emojicon that JTR added as a reaction to this post.] Uptown [7] is the central business district of Charlotte. It is home to most of the city's major institutions, as well as being the historic core. It is also the geographic center of Charlotte, with the center point of the city at the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets. -- quoted from http://wikitravel.org/en/Charlotte/Uptown

Oh, the towering feeling! (Even if Vic Damone sang On The Street Where You Live and had a separate album called "That Towering Feeling." )

We listened to the record so much that it was all like one big song. If I start singing from the beginning I don't stop until Ascot Gavotte (which I never learned well enough). So that's the only thing that kept me from singing both sides straight through. When I was about 8 we had a family move in from London with a strong British accent. I remember asking her* if she had any recordings from assemblies, or comedians, or anyone else who spoke with a Cockney accent. (*her: Only the mother and children attended meetings and the husband was many miles stand-offish.) She gave me some reel-to-reel tapes her husband didn't want any more. This was a Missouri congregation (1965), and although the sister's English was impeccable, a surprising number in the congregation thought she was literally speaking a foreign language.

That's pretty amazing. Just yesterday I tested myself to see if I still could sing that song, and just last week I played it through Amazon Alexa to my 17-month-old granddaughter. To my wife's chagrin, I still know every word to that song, and likely the entire Harrison/Hepburn repertoire for that neo-Pygmalion masterpiece. (When I grew up there were only a few movies we were allowed to watch and only about 4 records with lyrics that my father played for us. Therefore they got overplayed.)