607 B.C.E. - Is it Biblically Supported?

[JW Insider]

19 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

It won’t make a difference, when opposers can’t even sync their OWN secular history to Bible Chronology, much less use it to justify their failed attempts to understand scripture.

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.

[JW Insider]

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

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

Thank you. As I have said previously my computer skills are average and can you explain to me that when I write a paragraph for posting on this forum that when I hit the Enter key in order to commence a new line, the text that I have just written is deleted. How can I avoid this?

scholar JW

[JW Insider]

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the insertion of our Dates by means of brackets into a specific reference or quotation for the reader can easily see that by means of such a bracket, a insertion of the author's viewpoint or correction is intended. Such an academic convention is in harmony with their 'Style Manual' provided to WT writers and would follow similar style manuals common to other organizations and institutes of higher learning.

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:

 

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

The matter at hand is simply a matter of style and this is determined by whatever Style Manual the author or writer wishes to use. The WTS has produced its own style manual whereas other institutions either produce their own or if in the USA use the Chicago Manual of Style or its equivalent. However, such brackets should be squared rather than curved which automatically suggests to an informed reader that an 'insertion' is being made.

scholar JW

[AlanF]

It seems that the Watch Tower Society has finally bowed to the scientific evidence and now admits that evolution is true. Note these frank admissions in Watch Tower publications:

"The Bible is a myth" and "evolution is true".

"Evolution is true".

"Evolution is true . . . evolution is true . . . evolution is true".

"Evolution is true" and "The Bible is myth".

"The theory of evolution is true".

And the history book "Jehovah's Witnesses: Proclaimers of God's Kingdom" has moved the history of the Watch Tower organization back by 100 years, now saying that:

"In [1776], an article written by Charles Taze Russell was published in the magazine Bible Examiner."

"Beginning in about [1776], arrangements were made each year by the Bible Students for commemoration of the Lord’s death."

"Ever since [1776] the year [1874] had been Scripturally identified as a turning point in human history."

Note: this post was composed using "The Scholar JW Manual of Style".

AlanF

[JW Insider]

14 hours ago, scholar JW said:

However, such brackets should be squared rather than curved which automatically suggests to an informed reader that an 'insertion' is being made.

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.

 

[JW Insider]

13 minutes ago, AlanF said:

"Ever since [1776] the year [1874] had been Scripturally identified as a turning point in human history."

Note: this post was composed using "The Scholar JW Manual of Style".

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.

[JW Insider]

14 hours ago, scholar JW said:

when I hit the Enter key in order to commence a new line, the text that I have just written is deleted. How can I avoid this?

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.

 

[JW Insider]

23 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

This is hilarious since you admitted you can't remember stating you had copied COJ's original treatise.

I didn't say I couldn't remember stating this. I said I never stated it. I couldn't have stated it because it is not a true statement.

[AlanF]

20 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

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.

Exactly. Watch Tower practice -- and sometimes that of Scholar JW as well -- is to substitute "Peter" for "Paul" and hope readers fail to notice. Which they almost always do.

So the Watch Tower Society's scholastic dishonesty in these practices is deliberate.

AlanF

[AlanF]

20 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

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.

Which is precisely the goal of many Watch Tower writers.

One can find hundreds of similar egregious examples in Watch Tower literature. I myself have documented more than two dozen instances where WTS literature has given the impression -- usually without actually stating outright -- that all manner of pre-1914 WTS predictions came true, when the fact is that no visible prediction came true.

AlanF