JW Insider

Exactly on each point!!!
Now imagine Jehovah telling a "faitfhul slave" or pre-cursor of that "faithful slave" that the only way Jesus is going to distinguish between the 5 wise virgins and the 5 foolish virgins (in our time period) is based on their acceptance of a specific mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology.
And it's a chronology that started out as:
Oh look how great Ptolemy is; all astronomers agree that his dates are perfectly well-established! Which soon turned into:
Look how terrible Ptolemy is; his chronology is suspect because he gives different dates than the ones we need prior to 539. Let's go so far as to highlight a book that calls him a "criminal."  Which turned to:
Oh look how great the Nabonidus Chronicle is; it proves that Cyrus overtook him in his 17th year. Which turned to: 
Oh wait, let's stop mentioning the Nabonidus Chronicle; turns out that the number 17 was added by expert secular authorities, and that the same chronicle links him directly to the full length of Neriglissar's reign, which is the one tiny window of vulnerability we still need to raise suspicion about a possible 20 year gap!! Which turned to:
Oh look how great Strm. Cambyses is, it tells us directly that 539 is the only absolute date in ancient history!! Which turned to:
Whoops! Now we have to admit that this only works if we accept the authority of secular experts to correct numerous known mistakes and copyist errors on that same tablet, the astronomical tablets' understanding, and ancient tablet methods for measurements of two eclipses, and the authority of modern experts to date those eclipses taking into account the slowdown of the earth by about 16,000 seconds, and a non-contemporary King's list (like Ptolemy's) that is assumed to be correct, and some secular business contract tablets that help establish the length of the reign of Cyrus and Cambyses, (and which we reject when used elsewhere) and some [hi]stories by much later Greek historians that we don't really trust on most other matters. Which turned to:
Look how great the Olympiad dating system is; if we accept that it has been properly tied to the current BC/AD eras, it appears to tells us that the dates for Cyrus are accurate. Which turns to:
Oh wait! We reject the same Olympiad dating system even from much more recent times when it conflicts with our theory of Artaxerxes which we would like to say is 10 years off.  

Imagine, then, that approved association with Jehovah's people MUST include acceptance of a mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology!!
*** w86 4/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
Approved association with Jehovah’s Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses. What do such beliefs include?
. . .That 1914 marked the end of the Gentile Times and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the heavens, as well as the time for Christ’s foretold presence.

*** w83 1/1 p. 12 par. 5 The Kingdom Issue to the Fore! ***
Properly, then, the ending of the Gentile Times in the latter half of 1914 still stands on a historical basis as one of the fundamental Kingdom truths to which we must hold today.
 
Rather than:
(2 Timothy 3:15-17) . . .. All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

Exactly on each point!!!
Now imagine Jehovah telling a "faitfhul slave" or pre-cursor of that "faithful slave" that the only way Jesus is going to distinguish between the 5 wise virgins and the 5 foolish virgins (in our time period) is based on their acceptance of a specific mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology.
And it's a chronology that started out as:
Oh look how great Ptolemy is; all astronomers agree that his dates are perfectly well-established! Which soon turned into:
Look how terrible Ptolemy is; his chronology is suspect because he gives different dates than the ones we need prior to 539. Let's go so far as to highlight a book that calls him a "criminal."  Which turned to:
Oh look how great the Nabonidus Chronicle is; it proves that Cyrus overtook him in his 17th year. Which turned to: 
Oh wait, let's stop mentioning the Nabonidus Chronicle; turns out that the number 17 was added by expert secular authorities, and that the same chronicle links him directly to the full length of Neriglissar's reign, which is the one tiny window of vulnerability we still need to raise suspicion about a possible 20 year gap!! Which turned to:
Oh look how great Strm. Cambyses is, it tells us directly that 539 is the only absolute date in ancient history!! Which turned to:
Whoops! Now we have to admit that this only works if we accept the authority of secular experts to correct numerous known mistakes and copyist errors on that same tablet, the astronomical tablets' understanding, and ancient tablet methods for measurements of two eclipses, and the authority of modern experts to date those eclipses taking into account the slowdown of the earth by about 16,000 seconds, and a non-contemporary King's list (like Ptolemy's) that is assumed to be correct, and some secular business contract tablets that help establish the length of the reign of Cyrus and Cambyses, (and which we reject when used elsewhere) and some [hi]stories by much later Greek historians that we don't really trust on most other matters. Which turned to:
Look how great the Olympiad dating system is; if we accept that it has been properly tied to the current BC/AD eras, it appears to tells us that the dates for Cyrus are accurate. Which turns to:
Oh wait! We reject the same Olympiad dating system even from much more recent times when it conflicts with our theory of Artaxerxes which we would like to say is 10 years off.  

You got me curious, since I honestly had never even skimmed this portion of COJ's book. I noticed a footnote, on the same page you pointed to, about the famous eight-UK-clergymen December 1917 Manifesto, from their "prophets" conference. This manifesto has been referenced in the WTS publications several times.
*** nc pp. 20-21 pars. 36-37 When All Nations Collide, Head On, With God ***
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, Dr. F. B. Meyer, and six other well-known clergymen of England, issued a Manifesto, which was republished throughout the earth and which declared:
37 “(1) That the present crisis points toward the close of the times of the Gentiles. . . . (5) That all human schemes of reconstruction must be subsidiary to the second coming of our Lord, because all nations will then be subject to His rule. . . .”—Current Opinion, for February 1918.
I had already seen this same referenced Manifesto nearly 10 times in different WTS publications. But I had never realized that these "Gentile Times" were not really about 1914, but more specifically about the events of 1917. I hadn't noticed that the context in the WT about the 2520 years, really had nothing to do with this "Gentile Times" manifesto, because it was really more about the supposed fulfillment of the 1,260 days (years) of Revelation 11, which J.A.Brown had predicted 90 years earlier for 1917. (J.A.Brown never connected the 7 times, or 2,520 years, with the Gentile Times.)
So I looked up the phrase "present crisis points toward the close of the times of the Gentiles" in Google. Mostly it came back with Watchtower Library and jw.org links. And I found a lot of links that showed other religions had used the same Manifesto to show that their prophets were just as good or better (Mormons) and other religions used it to show just how useless and irrelevant those predictions had already become. 
But the most curious use of the manifesto was from Rutherford, who used it as "proof" that the world noticed the "beginning of the end of the world" in the 1920 book "Millions Now Living Will Never Die," page 40.
Rutherford quoted from the Manifesto, and had only good things to say about these particular preachers. He called them honest and faithful and good, as compared to so many other clergymen:

Even then, in 1920, it was rare to hear a good word about another preacher from Rutherford. But did he really think they were good, or did he change his mind about them?
A TALE OF TWO FCC's
[The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Council of Churches]
Well, I checked another link, this time to the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, which printed the entire speech of Rutherford in 1926, here, page 339. The speech follows the same logic and context of the 1920 "Millions" book treatment, still pointing out the Zionist fulfillment of prophecy. But this time he points out that "these very distinguished men who signed the manifesto have vehemently spoken against present truth and the Lord's kingdom."
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Federal_Communications_Commission/UAwvAAAAMAAJ


What is his evidence of the signers of the above showing vehement opposition to "present truth" since then? It is that a different group of clergymen, who did NOT sign the above manifesto, had signed on to the proposal for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. So in January 1919, the executive committee of the Federal Council of Churches, had made a "blasphemous" statement in that proposal about the League of Nations, hoping it represented a means to peace in the world:
 
The proposal was drafted by the executive committee of the FCC, and by December 1919 had become a petition to send to the U.S. Senate, where it failed. The proposals even contained wording that might remind you or Rutherford's own words about war. This is found in "Internationalizing the Social Gospel: The Federal Council of Churches and European Protestantism, 1914-1925 Author(s): Ralph L. Pearson"

But, naturally, Rutherford doesn't admit that the Watchtower itself had offered the same optimistic idea about the same League of Nations, following some of the same wording of the FCC:
One month after the statement of the FCC in January 1919, the February 15, 1919 Watchtower spoke in similar terms:
“We cannot but admire the high principles embodied in the proposed League of Nations, formulated undoubtedly by those who have no knowledge of the great plan of God. This fact makes all the more wonderful the ideals which they express. For instance, it has been made plain by President Wilson and the advocates of his ideas that the proposed League of Nations is more than merely a league to enforce peace. They would not have us consider it to exclusively from the standpoint of politics or of military relations. It should be considered as fully from the economic and social points of view. The President’s idea seems to be that the League of Nations which he proposes would stand for world service rather than mere world regulation in the military sense, and that the very smallest of nations shall be participants in its every arrangement. In other words, his idea undoubtedly is that the league shall not be established merely for the purpose of promoting peace by threat or coercion; but that its purpose, when put into operation, will be to make all nations of earth one great family, working together for the common benefit in all the avenues of national life. Truly this is idealistic, and approximates in a small way that which God has foretold that he will bring about after this great time of trouble.” — Watch Tower,  February 15, 1919,  p.51 [Reprints page 6389].

As an aside, note that the entire relative timeline from the beginning of  Neo-Babylonian to the Persian empire can easily be figured out without any reference to astronomy or even BCE dates.
The whole reason the WTS makes such a big deal out of our "traditional" date for the destruction of Jerusalem is based on a relative chronology from 539, not an absolute chronology of the time period. So a relative chronology is all one needs to debunk it. You don't even need to know if 539 was correct or not. You don't need BCE dates at all. Just the widely available archaeology without any need for software or assumptions about any potential copyist's errors, eclipses, planetary positions.
The contemporary business documents alone are more than enough to debunk the WTS chronology. And there are tens of thousands of those stone "witnesses" all consistently pointing to the same timeline. That's why the great emphasis in the WTS publications to constantly sow seeds of doubt about those tablets. I think that, as a group, the WTS is the biggest opposer of the tablets -- and the biggest opposer of ALL Neo-Babylonian archaeology.
 

Imagine, then, that approved association with Jehovah's people MUST include acceptance of a mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology!!
*** w86 4/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
Approved association with Jehovah’s Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses. What do such beliefs include?
. . .That 1914 marked the end of the Gentile Times and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the heavens, as well as the time for Christ’s foretold presence.

*** w83 1/1 p. 12 par. 5 The Kingdom Issue to the Fore! ***
Properly, then, the ending of the Gentile Times in the latter half of 1914 still stands on a historical basis as one of the fundamental Kingdom truths to which we must hold today.
 
Rather than:
(2 Timothy 3:15-17) . . .. All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

Exactly on each point!!!
Now imagine Jehovah telling a "faitfhul slave" or pre-cursor of that "faithful slave" that the only way Jesus is going to distinguish between the 5 wise virgins and the 5 foolish virgins (in our time period) is based on their acceptance of a specific mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology.
And it's a chronology that started out as:
Oh look how great Ptolemy is; all astronomers agree that his dates are perfectly well-established! Which soon turned into:
Look how terrible Ptolemy is; his chronology is suspect because he gives different dates than the ones we need prior to 539. Let's go so far as to highlight a book that calls him a "criminal."  Which turned to:
Oh look how great the Nabonidus Chronicle is; it proves that Cyrus overtook him in his 17th year. Which turned to: 
Oh wait, let's stop mentioning the Nabonidus Chronicle; turns out that the number 17 was added by expert secular authorities, and that the same chronicle links him directly to the full length of Neriglissar's reign, which is the one tiny window of vulnerability we still need to raise suspicion about a possible 20 year gap!! Which turned to:
Oh look how great Strm. Cambyses is, it tells us directly that 539 is the only absolute date in ancient history!! Which turned to:
Whoops! Now we have to admit that this only works if we accept the authority of secular experts to correct numerous known mistakes and copyist errors on that same tablet, the astronomical tablets' understanding, and ancient tablet methods for measurements of two eclipses, and the authority of modern experts to date those eclipses taking into account the slowdown of the earth by about 16,000 seconds, and a non-contemporary King's list (like Ptolemy's) that is assumed to be correct, and some secular business contract tablets that help establish the length of the reign of Cyrus and Cambyses, (and which we reject when used elsewhere) and some [hi]stories by much later Greek historians that we don't really trust on most other matters. Which turned to:
Look how great the Olympiad dating system is; if we accept that it has been properly tied to the current BC/AD eras, it appears to tells us that the dates for Cyrus are accurate. Which turns to:
Oh wait! We reject the same Olympiad dating system even from much more recent times when it conflicts with our theory of Artaxerxes which we would like to say is 10 years off.  

See the link above in response to the request. They had already been moved over an hour ago.

As an aside, note that the entire relative timeline from the beginning of  Neo-Babylonian to the Persian empire can easily be figured out without any reference to astronomy or even BCE dates.
The whole reason the WTS makes such a big deal out of our "traditional" date for the destruction of Jerusalem is based on a relative chronology from 539, not an absolute chronology of the time period. So a relative chronology is all one needs to debunk it. You don't even need to know if 539 was correct or not. You don't need BCE dates at all. Just the widely available archaeology without any need for software or assumptions about any potential copyist's errors, eclipses, planetary positions.
The contemporary business documents alone are more than enough to debunk the WTS chronology. And there are tens of thousands of those stone "witnesses" all consistently pointing to the same timeline. That's why the great emphasis in the WTS publications to constantly sow seeds of doubt about those tablets. I think that, as a group, the WTS is the biggest opposer of the tablets -- and the biggest opposer of ALL Neo-Babylonian archaeology.
 

When individuals present a distorted interpretation of history and scripture, it appears as if they are putting on a distracting spectacle.
I'm still waiting on JWI to have my post moved.

The upshot of all this so far feels a little bit like a carnival side-show "cover the spot" game only worse.
You have to get the cuneiform translations correct (some argue about the translations)
You have to argue for the cuneiform documents not being altered (some argue they've been altered)
You have to download multiple pieces of software and plot and print each one so you can scrutinize them. (make sure they all have the same resolution and viewpoint)
You have to remember that weird carry the one math thing (or is it minus the one) for BCE dates when you put it into the software.
You have to assume that the software is computing all this correctly, so you'll want to get a chart of eclipses and spot check the software using eclipses in modern times and locations.
You have to assume these have correctly created the right constellations using Babylonian/Assyrian names.
Then you have to research and see if there's evidence that the intercalary months which got added, got added when and where the authorities say they got added. (not all agree)

Or you can just quote your favorite authority and go with that.

The only way I've found any historians able to date with any certainty events in the past is when the initial recorders were accurate as to both the astronomical events these were seeing as well as the events which were occurring at the same time. Without the astronomical events you don't have any precision. Of course I'm referring to dates prior to our Common Era.

In Land Surveying it works the same way in spatial location as in temporal location.
You have to have solid data in both systems to fit “System A” to “System B”, and only then can you translate and rotate so there are no gaps or overlap.
Without a solid “benchmark” in BOTH systems, your data will not match.

So even without checking out any astronomy, just from the tablets alone, we would get exactly the same as "Ptolemy's Canon." We'd get the same length and order of all the kings' reigns.

There is a long inscription attributed to (actually in honor of) Nabonidus' mother, which honors her long life of about 102 to 104 years of age. It says about her life:
 From the 20th year of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, when I was born, until the 42nd year of Ashurbanipal, the 3rd year of his son Ashur-etil-ili, the 21st year of Nabopolassar, the 43rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, the 2nd year of Awel-Merodach, the 4th year of Neriglissar, during (all) these 95 years in which I visited the temple of the great godhead Sin, king of all the gods in heaven and in the nether world, he looked with favor upon my pious good works and listened to my prayers, accepted my vows. ..  He [the moon god Sin] added (to my life) many days (and) years of happiness and kept me alive from the time of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, to the 9th year of Nabonidus, king of Babylon, the son whom I bore, (i.e.) one hundred and four happy years (spent) in that piety which Sin, the king of all gods, has planted in my heart’. . . . The ninth year: . . . On the fifth day of the month Nisan the queen mother died in Dur-karashu which (is on) the bank of the Euphrates upstream from Sippar.
Therefore, the inscription says:
Ashurbanipal reigned 42 years, Ashuretilili reigned 3 years, Nabopolassar reigned 21 years, Awel-Merodach reigned 2 years, Neriglissar reigned 4 years, Nabonidus followed Neriglissar and the queen mother died in his 9th year. This matches the various other contemporary or near-contemporary sources for the lengths of the reign of each king:

It's true that there are tens of thousands of these business tablets, and tablets have been found for every year of the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings. And it's usually on the order of hundreds of them for each year of each king. This means that there are thousands of such tablets covering exactly:
21 years for Nabopolassar 43 years for Nebuchadnezzar 2 years for Evil-Merodach 4 years for Neriglissar 2 months for Labashi-Marduk 17 years for Nabonidus But that doesn't necessarily mean they we have put them in the right order. Without any knowledge of the astronomy tablets, how would contemporary documents show which kings ruled before and after each other?
For one thing we have the interlocking dates. The months of the accession year of one king cannot overlap with the last months of the last year of the previous king. But there was an exception to this with those two months of Labashi-Marduk who appears not to have been fully accepted as king in all parts of Babylonia, while Nabonidus was already a contender immediately after Neriglissar's death. There is another exception of a month or so, evidently, when Nebuchadnezzar's son, Evil-Merodach, was already taking over for his father in Nebuchadnezzar's final dying months. It's also conceivable that slight overlaps could happen when the year is already named for the previous king, and the new king is not fully established among royal contenders.  
We also have inscriptions where Nebuchadnezzar more than once calls himself the son of his father Nabopolassar, and inscriptions where Evil-Merodach calls himself the son of Nebuchadnezzar:
*** it-1 p. 773 Evil-merodach ***
There is also archaeological testimony concerning Evil-merodach (Awil-Marduk, Amil-Marduk). For example, an inscription on a vase found near Susa reads: “Palace of Amil-Marduk, King of Babylon, son of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.”
And inscriptions where Nabonidus calls himself the "ambassador of Nebuchadnezzar." 
As it turns out, the tablets themselves leave us with many different ways to link from one King to the next. They often reference prior years in contracts regarding loans and interest. The Egibi business entity provides a completely independent link of "presidents" of their banking/real estate company that perfectly matches and supports the order of the kings presented above.
And of course, the surviving portions of the Babylonian Chronicles provide a year by year reference that includes the transitions between most of these kings. 
I'd like to present a few of these "interlocking" tablets that determine the order of the kings, but there is another archaeological discovery that manages the interlocking of these kings in just one inscription . . . next. 

This idea that Satan can put Jews in power implies that God doesn't want Jews in power. But that would also imply that God only wants "Christians" including Hitler, Biden, Pol Pot, Chiang Kai-Shek, etc. 

I think it was around 2018 when I read a news report about a meeting of ex-JWs and non-JW relatives of Witnesses. They met somewhere around Seattle. Several of the attendees supposedly gave reports of suicides among disfellowshipped and shunned teenagers. (And I think there were cases of suicides among those who had suffered sexual abuse either in the congregation or from Witness parents.)
I'm sure you are right that it was more than just the shunning that drove them to suicide, but they definitely were presenting a pattern that indicated shunning as a key factor. It was likely exaggerated somewhat, but the report indicated that shunning and suicide became kind of a theme, and there were about a dozen such cases mentioned. It's probably a serious enough problem that the WTS is right now trying to address this issue by making changes to the process of disfellowshipping teenagers.

I think it was around 2018 when I read a news report about a meeting of ex-JWs and non-JW relatives of Witnesses. They met somewhere around Seattle. Several of the attendees supposedly gave reports of suicides among disfellowshipped and shunned teenagers. (And I think there were cases of suicides among those who had suffered sexual abuse either in the congregation or from Witness parents.)
I'm sure you are right that it was more than just the shunning that drove them to suicide, but they definitely were presenting a pattern that indicated shunning as a key factor. It was likely exaggerated somewhat, but the report indicated that shunning and suicide became kind of a theme, and there were about a dozen such cases mentioned. It's probably a serious enough problem that the WTS is right now trying to address this issue by making changes to the process of disfellowshipping teenagers.

I think it was around 2018 when I read a news report about a meeting of ex-JWs and non-JW relatives of Witnesses. They met somewhere around Seattle. Several of the attendees supposedly gave reports of suicides among disfellowshipped and shunned teenagers. (And I think there were cases of suicides among those who had suffered sexual abuse either in the congregation or from Witness parents.)
I'm sure you are right that it was more than just the shunning that drove them to suicide, but they definitely were presenting a pattern that indicated shunning as a key factor. It was likely exaggerated somewhat, but the report indicated that shunning and suicide became kind of a theme, and there were about a dozen such cases mentioned. It's probably a serious enough problem that the WTS is right now trying to address this issue by making changes to the process of disfellowshipping teenagers.

I think it was around 2018 when I read a news report about a meeting of ex-JWs and non-JW relatives of Witnesses. They met somewhere around Seattle. Several of the attendees supposedly gave reports of suicides among disfellowshipped and shunned teenagers. (And I think there were cases of suicides among those who had suffered sexual abuse either in the congregation or from Witness parents.)
I'm sure you are right that it was more than just the shunning that drove them to suicide, but they definitely were presenting a pattern that indicated shunning as a key factor. It was likely exaggerated somewhat, but the report indicated that shunning and suicide became kind of a theme, and there were about a dozen such cases mentioned. It's probably a serious enough problem that the WTS is right now trying to address this issue by making changes to the process of disfellowshipping teenagers.

How does that work, since nothing secular has attachments to anything we can verify w/o astronomical triangulation?

Or maybe they all still hate beards, but one of them had to sacrifice his personal preferences to show that the GB will lead by example. Perhaps he drew the "short straw" as they say here. 
Maybe next time, another one will go without the tie: 

Doesn’t matter. I’m growing one like Rip Van Winkle as we speak. Long enough to sweep the kitchen floor with.

Or maybe they all still hate beards, but one of them had to sacrifice his personal preferences to show that the GB will lead by example. Perhaps he drew the "short straw" as they say here. 
Maybe next time, another one will go without the tie: