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


JW Insider

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14 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

There should really be no reason why we are not rejoicing that secular, historical, archaeological evidence for 587 BCE once again shows the Bible to be accurate and sound from a historical perspective.

Exactly, and shouldn't all evidence confirm the Bible and the Bible all evidence. That is of course if one believes the Bible to be true, which I do. 

So now, if there is no support for 607, but there is for 587, then why the long held belief in 607? Is it just to make a date of 1914 ring true? It appears that way.

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Hmmmm......I beg to differ. How about we both ask a number of friends a simple question at the KH this Sunday or in a field service group: "do you know how to explain why we believe 1914 and 607?"

This is where Freedom and sanity, and peace come from .... when you disregard people who have proved they have no credibility whatsoever ... and STOP BEING AFRAID OF DYING.  Every living thing th

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9 hours ago, JW Insider said:

If Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BCE, then 518 BCE is 69 years later, and therefore matches Zechariah's theme of 70 years of withheld mercy and indignities, and wailing and fasting over Jerusalem, which is now being rebuilt.

How do you think Daniel 9:1-2 relates to this scenario?

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On 4/15/2016 at 3:55 AM, Eoin Joyce said:

How do you think Daniel 9:1-2 relates to this scenario?

There may be better and clearer alternatives to the idea from Daniel 9:1-2, but I don't believe anyone has found any major problems or discrepancies with the WTS understanding.

(Daniel 9:1, 2) 9 In the first year of Da·riʹus the son of A·has·u·eʹrus—a descendant of the Medes who had been made king over the kingdom of the Chal·deʹans— 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, discerned by the books the number of years mentioned in the word of Jehovah to Jeremiah the prophet to fulfill the desolation of Jerusalem, namely, 70 years.

(Daniel 1:1) 1 In the third year of the kingship of King Je·hoiʹa·kim of Judah, King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

(Jeremiah 52:28-30) 28 These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar took into exile: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews. 29 In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem. 30 In the 23rd year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard took Jews into exile, 745 people.. . .

 

Based on the fact that Daniel's had discerned the 70 years of Jeremiah and that this is juxtaposed with the fact that it is now the 1st year of Darius, it seems safe to assume the following:

  • The Chaldeans/Babylonians have been just very recently been conquered by the Medo-Persian Empire.
  • History & Archaeology puts this event at about 539 BCE, and it appears consistent with Biblical evidence.
    • Accepting 539 BCE is the same as accepting the entire Neo-Babylonian chronology. (Otherwise it would be like accepting that the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865 but you won't accept that it started in 1861.) Therefore, accepting 539 BCE means that Assyria fell in 609, Nebuchadnezzar became ruler in 604, numerous incursions around Judea, and exiles of prisoners from Judea were known from around 605 (months before Neb was ruler), 598/7 (Neb 7th yr. non-accession), 587/6 (Neb 18th yr), 582/1 (Neb 23rd yr) -- Jer. 52:28-30.
  • Since Jeremiah had spoken of 70 years given to Babylon so that Babylon could rule and wreak havoc over the nations for that length of time, Daniel must have known that the 70 years was up due to the fall of Babylon. (This matches 2 Chronicles that stated that the 70 years would be up when the Persian king began ruling.)
  • Daniel indicates that the 70 years were somehow also a part of the fulfillment of the desolation of Jerusalem, and that it was now time for the punishment to end and the restoration to Judea.
    • But we know that Daniel would not likely be of the opinion that this meant 70 years of total desolation, since the first physical "desolations" (through incursions, battles and exile) evidently didn't start counting until about 605 and ended about 5 years after the final desolation of Jerusalem, per Jeremiah 52:30. It had been about 66 years since the first exiles.

Daniel never mentions the decree of Cyrus. In Daniel 10:1 he mentions the 3rd year of Cyrus while Daniel is evidently still in Babylonia, but with no specific historical event tied to it. It seems impossible that Daniel wouldn't have known about the decree of Cyrus, but Daniel is apparently looking beyond just the return, to the actual re-inauguration of the Temple, which wouldn't start for another 20 years, and wouldn't be ready for dedication until the next century.

So Daniel receives a different kind of answer about the 70 years. For the "real" fulfillment, it wouldn't be 70 years, but 70 times 7 years. This uses not a "day-for-a-year" rule but a "7-years-for-a-year" rule. Something like this rule is mentioned a couple other times in the Bible. Exactly when to start the 70 x 7 = 490 years, I wouldn't know. But it seems that Daniel is now to look far off into the future for the true Temple fulfillment. Every Christian-oriented commentary makes sense of this by having it point to Jesus as the true Temple, but this produces a couple of chronology issues, too. And our solution (WTS) doesn't do anything with the 62 weeks, or the 7 weeks, it merely combines them. We also don't have Jesus "cut off" at the 69th week. (We use the 69.5 weeks instead of the 69.0 found in Daniel 9:26 “And after the 62 weeks, Mes·siʹah will be cut off, with nothing for himself." So I wouldn't say our explanation is complete or perfect, yet, but I can't see any real evidence against it. There are other explanations that account for the 7 and the 62, but these have their own problems.

This is really no different from the WTS, it would still start very close to 607 BCE (+/- a year or two) and end just as close to 539 BCE. The only thing it can't do is start at the very time of the temple destruction, but our own WTS argument also (inadvertently) argues against starting it them, because it is supposed to start at a time of full and complete desolation, which obviously didn't happen at the time of the temple destruction anyway.

  • (Jeremiah 52:15, 16) 15 Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard took into exile some of the lowly people and the rest of the people who were left in the city. He also took the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon as well as the rest of the master craftsmen. 16 But Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to serve as vinedressers and as compulsory laborers.

And as already quoted above...

  • (Jeremiah 52:28-30) 28 These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar took into exile: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews. 29 In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem. 30 In the 23rd year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard took Jews into exile, 745 people.. . .

 

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On 4/14/2016 at 6:06 PM, JW Insider said:

Biblically supported, if we assume that 539 BCE is correct. (Based on what the Bible says about the "70 years" in at least 4 different places. There is the additional Biblical issue of a 70-year period that starts at the commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and coming to a close at a period nearly 20 years past the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. 

Wait a minute, isn't 539 BCE plus 70 years 609 BCE,? And then when we consider the actual return of the Jews to start re- building the temple as being 537 BCE and add 70 years it gives us 607 BCE....so .how does that go 20 years past the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus?

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I have several issues with your post: Firstly, the dating of the commencement of the seventy years from 609 BCE is problematic for the simple reason nothing of historical significance occurred in that year further its ending in 539 BCE is also absurd because the Jews were still in Babylon after that date. So both the beginning and the end of the seventy years simply does not work. Carl Jonsson failed to resolve these problems especially the first objection as he wavered between 609 BCE and 605 BCE.

Further, the seventy years of Zechariah are also problematic if we simply ignore the fact that Zechariah was referring to those seventy years that began with Jerusalem's destruction in 607 BCE until their end in 537 BCE. Again, Jonsson who discussed these seventy years in some detail could come with a coherent chronology.

One can only conclude that 607 BCE is the only possible date for the Fall of Jerusalem and the beginning of the seventy years and with some fine tuning well harmonizes with the secular evidence. The date 587 BCE is unacceptable as it has to compete with 586 and other dates.

scholar JW

 

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On 11/4/2017 at 5:51 AM, JW Insider said:

Yes. A 70 year period that ended in 539 would have to have started around 609. And this is a pretty good match for when Babylonian power reared its head over Assyria. The capital of Nineveh fell in 612 and Babylon took advantage and became the next world power. 609 was the year that Josiah died. Josiah was considered by many Jews to be the next potential Messiah, a king like David.

In fact, notice that 609 is exactly the year that the Watch Tower publications point to (indirectly) when it speaks of the end of the Assyrian empire. (Remember that the WTS arbitrarily adds 20 years to every date prior to 587 B.C.E., so that 607 B.C.E.is actually 587 B.C.E., and therefore 629 B.C.E. is actually 609 B.C.E.)

*** it-1 p. 205 Assyria ***

  • According to the same chronicle, in the 14th year of Nabopolassar (632 B.C.E.), Ashur-uballit II attempted to continue Assyrian rule from Haran as his capital city. This chronicle states, under the 17th year of Nabopolassar (629 B.C.E.): “In the month Duʼuzu, Ashur-uballit, king of Assyria, (and) a large [army of] E[gy]pt [who had come to his aid] crossed the river (Euphrates) and [marched on] to conquer Harran.” (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 305; brackets and parentheses theirs.) Actually, Ashur-uballit was trying to reconquer it after having been driven out. This record is in harmony with the account relative to the activity of Pharaoh Nechoh recorded at 2 Kings 23:29, which activity resulted in the death of King Josiah of Judah (c. 629 B.C.E.). This text states that “Pharaoh Nechoh the king of Egypt came up to the king of Assyria by the river Euphrates”—evidently to help him. “The king of Assyria” to whom Nechoh came may well have been Ashur-uballit II. Their campaign against Haran did not succeed. The Assyrian Empire had ended.

So this is an excellent match for the 70 years of Babylonian domination from 609 to 539, spoken about by Jeremiah:

  • (Jeremiah 25:11, 12) 11 And all this land will be reduced to ruins and will become an object of horror, and these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon for 70 years.”12 “‘But when 70 years have been fulfilled, I will call to account the king of Babylon and that nation for their error,’ . . .

Just as the Watch Tower publications have explained it in the "Isaiah's Prophecy" book:

*** ip-1 chap. 19 p. 253 par. 21 Jehovah Profanes the Pride of Tyre ***

  • “These nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jeremiah 25:8-17, 22, 27) . . . Evidently, the 70 years represents the period of Babylonia’s greatest domination—when the Babylonian royal dynasty boasts of having lifted its throne even above “the stars of God.” (Isaiah 14:13) Different nations come under that domination at different times. But at the end of 70 years, that domination will crumble.

So that is ONE period of 70 years that started in 609 and ended in 539.

The Bible, in the book of Zechariah, also mentions another period of 70 years that starts around 587 (destruction of Jerusalem) or even 588 when the siege began, and ends around 518. Since it's been so many months I'll repeat some portions of the post you referred to, where this was explained:

------- the remainder of this post copied from a previous post (JWI: 4/14/2017) above -------

(Zechariah 1:12) . . .“O Jehovah of armies, how long will you withhold your mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with whom you have been indignant these 70 years?

(Zechariah 7:5) . . .‘When you fasted and wailed in the fifth month and in the seventh month for 70 years. . .

(Zechariah 8:19) . . .‘The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month will be occasions for exultation and joy for the house of Judah. . .

*** w96 11/15 p. 5 Does God Require Fasting? ***
For example, at one time the people of Judah had four annual fasts to commemorate the calamitous events associated with Jerusalem’s siege and desolation in the seventh century B.C.E. (2 Kings 25:1-4, 8, 9, 22-26; Zechariah 8:19)

According to our current understanding of the chronology that includes the supposed destruction of Jerusalem in 607 BCE, then this produces a contradiction, because we date the book of Zechariah as follows:

*** nwt p. 1662 Table of the Books of the Bible ***
Zechariah
Jerusalem rebuilt
518
520-518 [BCE]

If Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BCE, then 518 BCE is 69 years later, and therefore matches Zechariah's theme of 70 years of withheld mercy and indignities, and wailing and fasting over Jerusalem, which is now being rebuilt.

If Jerusalem had been destroyed in 607 BCE, then by Zechariah's time, in 518 BCE, it would have been 89 years of wailing and fasting.

Neither date is "Biblical" and neither date should really matter that much, but it is curious that 607 BCE is totally impossible from the perspective of secular evidence, and it becomes very difficult from the perspective of Biblical evidence. Yet 587 BCE is totally supported from the perspective of secular evidence and provides an excellent match to the Biblical evidence. There should really be no reason why we are not rejoicing that secular, historical, archaeological evidence for 587 BCE once again shows the Bible to be accurate and sound from a historical perspective.

Sorry, I have just now had the chance to return to this.

So basically, from what I can see, the difference between the two dates is this:

The 607 calculation is based on 70 years of desolation to the START of rebuilding the temple in 537/8

The 587 calculation is based on 70 years of desolation to the END (completion) of the temple in 516

So I see it is simply a matter of when the 70 years were considered ended, at the beginning or at the end of rebuilding the temple.

 

 

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9 hours ago, Anna said:

So basically, from what I can see, the difference between the two dates is this:

The 607 calculation is based on 70 years of desolation to the START of rebuilding the temple in 537/8

The 587 calculation is based on 70 years of desolation to the END (completion) of the temple in 516

Sort of. That sounds simple, but I think that it could cause some confusion, too. 

The 607 calculation is based on claiming that 70 years ended in 538/7 and it is a CORRECT calculation of the 70 years. (plus or minus one or two years)  It's just that it has nothing to do with the date of the destruction of Jerusalem. It's a very good calculation of the 70 years of dominance given to Babylon. And of course, we know that the 70 years of Babylonian dominance would result in a corresponding desolation to be fulfilled upon Judea. It is possible to interpret it, but there is no specific Bible statement that the years of Judean desolation would have to also last exactly 70 years, but there would be a definite correspondence, because the 70 years for Babylon would PRODUCE the years of desolation for Judea to fulfill its sabbaths. Also, there is no specific Bible statement that  period of complete and utter desolation for the entire 70 year period that was given to Babylon for dominance. If we looked for that literally we would probably never find proof of an exact period of full and complete desolation. It appears to refer to 70 years that started with a paralyzing fear of Babylon, followed by desecrations by Babylon, deportations to Babylon,  death and destruction by Babylon, and ultimately resulting in a destruction of the capital and temple, the further fleeing of inhabitants, and a near desolation of Judea lasting for nearly 50 years until Jews returned in 538 or so. That 70 years of dominance by Babylon resulted in 70 years of desolation of Judea from about 609 when Babylonian domination began to 539, when Babylonian domination ceased as Persia came to power. The 607 calculation can be made this way, but it is impossible to date the destruction of Jerusalem and it's temple by using this calculation of the 70 years. The Bible does not say that there was a specific point starting from the destruction of the temple, for example, which is the unique point from which to start counting a period of 70 years of desolation of Judea.

Then this is compared with a 587 calculation based on 70 years to a temple completion milestone dated to 516. This is just another period of 70 years, but it is not another way to calculate the first period of 70 years, which was 70 years of Babylonian domination according to Jeremiah. It is another period of desolation of the Temple site, but was defined as a period of 70 years of mourning and fasting and wailing over the events involved in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Therefore they could have started with the siege more than a year before the actual burning of the Temple. So this period could be called a period of 70 years as early as 518, for example.

So while you present both calculations as DIFFERENT ways to figure the date for the destruction of Jerusalem, they are both CORRECT calculations for different periods, only the latter of which is closely related to the date for the destruction of Jerusalem.

 

Just an aside as a postscript:

Of course, there are others who would make the latter 70 years from about 587 to about 517 refer to THE 70 years of desolation, explaining, perhaps, why Daniel asks about the end of the 70 years as soon as the 70 years for Babylon are completed, but Daniel gets an answer that he has to continue to wait past 7 weeks of years (49 years) and then another 62 weeks of years for a real fulfillment. If those two periods are broken with a gap in the middle, then they could represent the time from 588 to 539 (49 years) and another period that might lead to the Messiah or a Messianic event. I don't buy the complication this causes.  

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3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The 607 calculation is based on claiming that 70 years ended in 538/7 and it is a CORRECT calculation of the 70 years. (plus or minus one or two years)  It's just that it has nothing to do with the date of the destruction of Jerusalem. It's a very good calculation of the 70 years of dominance given to Babylon.

So is it wrong to say that the dominance given to Babylon started with the destruction of Jerusalem?  I know you gave reasons why we cannot be sure when the 70 years started, but as it stands, it looks like it's down to  interpretation....?

Excuse my being a little thick, but just pretend I am a 10 year old

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