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

[Foreigner]

59 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

LOL. I never thought or claimed that you were referring the 1st edition, that's why I made that clear from the very start and have continued to make it clear. The claim I made is still true. I don't think there was any misunderstanding even on the part of those who wanted to make it look like they were misunderstanding.

LOL!! more of the same.

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

His idea is a schema, required to make a certain interpretation of the 70 weeks of years and Ezekiel's 390 years work in a way that tries to override all evidence. In the second edition, he pretends there is only one major piece of secular evidence to overcome, when this is obviously false. 

Such as the claim VAT4956 is supposed to be read to coincide with 587BC instead of 588BC

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

This is a claim most people, especially Witnesses, believe is false. You and I probably both believe that everyone is entitled to think and have faith in whatever standard they wish to apply. I'm all for that. But everyone is NOT entitled to publish that standard and claim it's true "without having it scrutinized." If anyone puts an idea out there, just like you or me, they are really asking for it to be scrutinized.

Are you a published scholar to make this claim?

It seems it has taken 6 pages to admit, everyone is entitled to their opinion published or not. Scholars do that every day without so much as scrutiny from outside sources, which the WT has had to endure.

[DefenderOTT]

23 hours ago, JW Insider said:

es, these are the standard dates that the author never agrees with on any pages of the book in any edition. And if you are asking, yes, he also thinks that 605-586=19. But that doesn't matter because he thinks that Jerusalem was destroyed in 390 BC. And he also thinks that the Jews remained in Babylon for only 49 years. (But he also says that they were returned after only 40 years in 350 BC, rather than 539/8.)

Then, according to this author, it shouldn’t matter how one views the 19 years. If it should be read as the hypothetical has become for VAT4956 to be 568BC-587BC, 567BC-586BC, and 569BC-588BC. Wait!!!

The author, even though doesn’t believe secular “facts” are interpreted, correctly? He does make a distinct observation with the 19 years.

1.       605-586-567BC possible date for VAT4956

2.       606-587-568BC possible date for VAT4956

3.       607-588-569BC off one year from a possible date for VAT4956. Providing 588BC is not adjustable.

Unless we use the ancient calendar of Lunar/Solar!

1.       606/7BCBC-586/7BC-567/8BC. Then, we can apply the 19 years, correctly as indicated by VAT4956 37^th year of Nebuchadnezzar as indicated by secular history. With the WT being off 1 year from the proposed secular chronology. So, where’s the famous “gotcha” moment? VAT4956 then actually agrees with all possible dates from 606/7BC to 568/9BC.

Is this why skeptics, are now leaning more toward 567BC rather than 568BC as originally applied?

[JW Insider]

2 minutes ago, Foreigner said:

Such as the claim VAT4956 is supposed to be read to coincide with 587BC instead of 588BC

That's the first time I've ever heard of anyone supposing those are two different alternative dates for VAT4956. Rolf Furuli, for example, wrote a book that claimed that VAT4956 could refer to both 587 AND 588 for its lunar observations, but admits that it clearly refers to both 568 AND 567 for the other astronomical observations.

No one I have ever heard of thinks that VAT 4956 is supposed to be read to coincide with 587 instead of 588.

20 minutes ago, Foreigner said:

Are you a published scholar to make this claim?

LOL. You seem to be having a lot of fun. Let's review: Your claim was this from your quote repeated here:

3 hours ago, Foreigner said:

Everyone is entitled to think and have faith in whatever standard they wish to apply without having it scrutinized by interpretations that have "faults" of their own by secular reckoning.

I claimed that you were correct, in that everyone is entitled to apply whatever standards they wish. But if anyone wants to publish their reasons or try to convince others with their evidence, then they SHOULD be willing to have it scrutinized. You just said they should be entitled to NOT have it scrutinized. I disagree. For example:

• you should have the right to scrutinize what I say
• you should have the right to scrutinize what Grayson says
• you should have the right to scrutinize what COJ says
• you should have the right to scrutinize what the Watchtower says
• Furuli should have the right to scrutinize what COJ says
• Darren Thompson should have the right to scrutinize what Furuli says
• I should have the right to scrutinize what COJ says
• The Watchtower should have the right to scrutinize what Ptolemy says

I agree with this, and I think most Witnesses are trained to agree with it. Even though you say you don't, I think even you agree with it. So I had to wonder why you were indicating that this author apparently had a right NOT to be scrutinized. Surely everyone, published or not, is entitled to their opinion about someone else's published work. 

2 hours ago, Foreigner said:

It seems it has taken 6 pages to admit, everyone is entitled to their opinion published or not.

Exactly. It seemed you were the only one who thought that was even a question, however, based on your odd claim that a particular author should not be scrutinized. At least we can now see you don't really believe it. For me, however, that whole diversion about "opinion and scrutiny"just seemed like a contrived red herring, because the question I was addressing was what you asked Ann about the relevance of VAT4956.

 

[JW Insider]

2 hours ago, DefenderOTT said:

Then, according to this author, it shouldn’t matter how one views the 19 years.

No. The author is saying that VAT 4956 does matter, and therefore it should be precisely redated to his own preferences which are about 200 years off from Grayson, P&D, Furuli, COJ, Watchtower, scholar JW, etc.

2 hours ago, DefenderOTT said:

He does make a distinct observation with the 19 years.

1.       605-586-567BC possible date for VAT4956

No. The author does not believe these are the possible reference sets of dates for Nebuchadnezzar's reign indicated by VAT4956. Nor for any of the other sets of dates you mentioned, either. The quoted page (35) was indicating dates that the author does NOT accept. You agree with this right?

2 hours ago, DefenderOTT said:

So, where’s the famous “gotcha” moment? VAT4956 then actually agrees with all possible dates from 606/7BC to 568/9BC.

Didn't know you or I or anyone else was looking for a "gotcha" moment. LOL. But it should be obvious that VAT 4956 cannot actually agree with all possible dates, including 607/606. I've never heard of anyone who would think of publishing such a claim, have you?

2 hours ago, DefenderOTT said:

Is this why skeptics, are now leaning more toward 567BC rather than 568BC as originally applied?

What skeptics? scholar JW? Foreigner? you? Thompson? If you are talking about VAT 4956, the Watchtower says:

*** w11 11/1 p. 25 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two ***

• Scholars say that all these positions occurred in 568/567 B.C.E., which would make the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar II, when he destroyed Jerusalem, 587 B.C.E

The positions mentioned on the tablet cover both the years 567 and 568; not just one year or the other. I'd be skeptical of any skeptic who didn't understand this point.

From what I can tell, the misunderstanding must stem from this claim by @Foreigner:

On 12/17/2017 at 10:59 AM, Foreigner said:

Yet, finds the 19 years accurate for 586BC to 605BC.

It might look like that's true if you just read a page or two, but if you continue reading the context you will see that the author does NOT find the 19 years accurate for 586BC to 605BC. He thinks both those dates are off by a very specific amount that begins just over 200 years later.

[Anna]

3 new pages since I last commented!! Hard to keep up. Thank you @JW Insider, @Ann O'Maly and @scholar JW for your answers.

I have another question. What is wrong with WT counting back 70 years from 539 (537 as the start of the temple rebuilding) assuming the 70 years applied to the Jews, when 539/537 is a reliable date.

[DefenderOTT]

40 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

No. The author is saying that VAT 4956 does matter, and therefore it should be precisely redated to his own preferences which are about 200 years off from Grayson, P&D, Furuli, COJ, Watchtower, scholar JW, etc.

 

40 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

No. The author does not believe these are the possible reference sets of dates for Nebuchadnezzar's reign indicated by VAT4956. Nor for any of the other sets of dates you mentioned, either. The quoted page (35) was indicating dates that the author does NOT accept. You agree with this right?

Let's get things back to perspective. You're making several assertions that are NOT by my comments. I'm no longer looking at the author's reasoning, but rather the dates set before secular history, and how VAT4956 agrees with any post-ideology.

[JW Insider]

41 minutes ago, DefenderOTT said:

Let's get things back to perspective. You're making several assertions that are NOT by my comments. I'm no longer looking at the author's reasoning, but rather the dates set before secular history, and how VAT4956 agrees with any post-ideology.

OK. Good. Glad to be back on track.

[JW Insider]

2 hours ago, Anna said:

I have another question. What is wrong with WT counting back 70 years from 539 (537 as the start of the temple rebuilding) assuming the 70 years applied to the Jews, when 539/537 is a reliable date.

There is nothing wrong with the WT counting back 70 years from 539. I believe that the 70 years starts from 70 years prior to 539, too. And of course, there is a definite connection between the 70 years given to Babylon and the chance for Judea to pay off its sabbaths. So Judea also pays off its sabbaths during the desolation of the 70 years Jehovah gave authority to Babylon. To me the Bible seems pretty clear about ending the 70 years when the kingdom of Persia takes over and not one or two years later, as the Watchtower suggests. That's because of what the 70 years really are, 70 years for Babylon's dominion, not 70 years of total desolation of Judea. However, I am not a stickler for all Biblical numbers having to be exactly counted the way we immediately think we should count them. When the Bible says a man's years are 70 or 80 (lifespan) I don't think that this means no one has ever lived to be 82 or died naturally at age 68, or 75. When the Bible says Jesus was in the grave for 3 days, I don't think that we need be concerned that it was all of Saturday, but perhaps only a few short hours on Friday afternoon and Sunday early morning. So, if the WT has good reason to believe it ran from 607 to 537, I would be very happy with that.

But here is the snag. 539 is not a Biblical date. It's a secular date. The reasons we know that this secular date is accurate are here:

• because it's 66 years from Nebuchadnezzar's first year,
• because it's 9 years before Cambyses' first year,
• because it's 23 years after Evil Merodach's first year,
• because it's 21 years after Neriglissar's first year,
• because it's 17 years after Labasi-Marduk's short reign
• because it's 17 years after Nabonidus' first year
• because it's 87 years after Nabopolassar's first year

In other words the only reason we know 539 is accurate is because we know the lengths of the kings' reigns from Nabopolassar to Cambyses, and a bit beyond (in both directions). We should never speak of the year 539 unless we are accepting that it is a date 66 years after the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, for example. In other words, if we say that we believe we can use the date 539 for the accession year of Cyrus over Babylon, then we can only say this if we believe that the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar was 587.

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Another reason we know that 587 and 539 are accurate is because there are not just one or two, but DOZENS of points throughout the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings where we have astronomical evidence that points to only one particular year. In every case there is no question or contradiction about all of them fitting perfectly with each other. Not all data is still readable, of course, but all that is fits the timeline without contradicting the other forms of evidence.

Another reason we know that the 587 and 539 dates are accurate is because there are literally tens of thousands of clay tablets that have no particular political or religious purpose that just happen to coincide with exactly the same lengths of each kings' reign as the later "king lists" that were copied and retained in much later years. Also, the clay tablets only match the same number of years of each king's reign that also coincidentally happens to fit all the other evidence.

Another reason we know that the 587 and 539 dates are accurate is because there is a second thread of information that runs through hundreds of the clay tablets which provides a second witness by giving us the names of another parallel "dynasty" of the generations of the house of Egibi, who were something like the CEO's or bank presidents. They also happen to confirm the exact lengths of all the kings in the same way that coincides with all other forms of evidence.

[This form of cross-checking in enormously helpful, especially when a loan is known to have started in a certain year of one king and one "bank president," and then end in a certain year of the next king. Also if a certain "bank president" is always active for every transaction that happens in the early part of a particular year of a particular king, but the son of that "bank president" is said to be the new "bank president" for the remainder of that king's year and even into the first few years of the next king, we have a whole new way to validate the order of the kings and the lengths of their reigns. It becomes similar to the way, in Egyptian chronology, when the records of special bulls were kept along with their ages and under which king's year they were born, and under which king's year they died.]

Another reason we know that the 587 and 539 dates are accurate is because of a couple of kings' lists that were discovered to be contemporary with almost the entire set of Neo-Babylonian kings. These are not late versions of kings' lists like those that survive through Ptolemy's works -- which also happen to confirm the Neo-Babylonian period of lengths of kings' reigns, with no contradictions to any of the other pieces of evidence.

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By the same token, if we don't believe that Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year was 587, then we have no right to speak of the first [accession] year of Cyrus over Babylon as 539. Simply put, using the date 539 means that we accept the same dating system that puts Neb's 19th year in 587. It would be dishonest to speak of 539, if we didn't believe that.

Also, because Jewish and Babylonian years don't start on January 1st and end on December 31st, it's a little more proper to say that Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year starts in 587 and ends in 586. Also since Nebuchadnezzar became king late in 605, this was only a partial year, or accession year, and his "official" first year was therefore 604. Therefore by that count, 587 started his 18th year official year, but the Bible often uses a method where the accession year is counted and with that method this would be called his 19th year. 

*Note: some of the years and lengths mentioned above are going to be one year off due to avoiding the lengthiness of precise language accounting for the difference in cardinal/ordinal - accession/non-accession.

[Evacuated]

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

There is nothing wrong with the WT counting back 70 years

This is a simple statement and really answers @Anna's question.

The debate is obviously far from over, but as an interim observation, from reading all the various arguments and responses to questions about the chronology endorsed by the Watchtower articles on this matter, two things are apparent (at the moment ) to me.

1. It is NOT posssible to reconcile the Bible Chronolgy used by Jehovah's Witnesses with all current attestations of secular history. This would appear to be the case for ALL interpretations of Bible Chronology. The torturous explanations I have seen presented arguing against JW Chronology are, for the most part, complex, lengthy, and tedious, similar to the kind of argumentation found in 19th and early 20th century Society publications . Also whilst purporting to be factual, both sides use the same liberal sprinkling of irrelevant terms such as "honest", "dishonest"; "most modern"; "reputable" and other irrelevant descriptors that would be more at home in an argument about the scientific basis for the theory of evolution.

2, The crux of objection to the Bible Chronolgy as used by Jehovah's Witnesses is a disagreement with the Witness view of the year 1914 CE as the time for the establishment of the Messianic kingdom in Jesus Christ's hands, in heaven, and the commencement of the "last days"  period of this current human system of government under the influence of Satan the Devil. Intertwined with this is a disagreement with the view that the period of time of 2520 years commonly termed the "Gentile Times", elsewhere the "appointed time of the nations", commenced in the year 607BCE and terminated in the year 1914CE.

I just do not believe that working out where we are in the stream of time has to be as difficult as objectors claim. None of the opposers arguments presented so far have the "ring of truth" about them. 

 

[JW Insider]

6 hours ago, Gone Fishing said:

9 hours ago, JW Insider said:

There is nothing wrong with the WT counting back 70 years

This is a simple statement and really answers @Anna's question.

The rest of the post should make it clearer however that "There is nothing wrong with the WT counting back 70 years from 539" as long as the WT admits that you can't honesty use the term "539" without also accepting that "587" is the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar. I have no problem starting the 70 years in 609 or even 607, but I can't honestly use the term 609 or 607 unless I'm referring to a time more than 20 years before Jerusalem was destroyed.

But it would also be dishonest of me to make a claim that "Bible chronology" would place Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year in the year 607. If you have been told 1,000 times that this idea shows that we put "Bible" chronology over "secular" chronology then the whole idea will have a "ring of truth" -- but it's still dishonest.

[Ann O'Maly]

17 hours ago, Foreigner said:

Everyone is entitled to think and have faith in whatever standard they wish to apply without having it scrutinized by interpretations that have "faults" of their own by secular reckoning.

You are entitled to be a flat-earther or believe in flying pink unicorns. But it doesn't make your opinions factual. Scrutiny, under the light of objective evidence, will thoroughly debunk those 'entitled' opinions.

17 hours ago, Foreigner said:

Even "Grayson" readjusted some mistakes in his earlier work. BM21901 etc have unreadable areas. The Babylonian Chronicles don't tell a "complete" story. Was the scribe with Nebuchadnezzar when writing those events? or were they dictated after as a matter of history? NONE of these hypotheticals have a 100% certainty.

How do Grayson's revisions, the chronicle's lacunae, and brief highlights of each regnal year affect the neo-Babylonian timeline? Because, this is what we are talking about here - whether chunks of time are missing to the tune of e.g. 20 years (WT) or 200 years (Thompson) - not whether every single thing a king did in his reign was recorded for posterity (even the Gospels aren't the 'complete story' - John 21:25). We CAN establish with 99.9999% certainty that the NB timeline has no 20-year or 200-year chunks of time missing.

16 hours ago, Foreigner said:

Such as the claim VAT4956 is supposed to be read to coincide with 587BC instead of 588BC

The diary has been tested. It was dated to a clearly marked regnal year and had 30 or so celestial observations recorded on it. The astronomical data only matches one year: 568-7 BCE. It can be no other. Even if the scribe had written the wrong regnal year or king (he didn't), the astronomical information would still only fit 568-7 BCE. The sky doesn't lie.

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9 hours ago, allensmith28 said:

I have debated this person *JEFFRO* for a long time in JWN.

Take a close look at his timeline. This person is a GREAT SUPPORTER of Carl Olof Jonsson’s, claims.

I'm glad you mentioned him. He's one who has NOT read COJ's book, but has independently researched and pieced together a timeline from the archaeological, historical and biblical evidence. Surprise, surprise - his findings for the NB and early Persian periods coincide with the standard, conventional timeline that reputable historians and Bible chronologists use.

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11 hours ago, Anna said:

I have another question. What is wrong with WT counting back 70 years from 539 (537 as the start of the temple rebuilding) assuming the 70 years applied to the Jews, when 539/537 is a reliable date.

Nothing is wrong with counting back 70 years from 539 or 537 BCE.

The problem is assigning events to 609 or 607 BCE that history testifies happened in other years. Watchtower asserts that 609 BCE was when Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar and that 607 BCE was when Jerusalem was destroyed. Archaeological records testify that Nebuchadnezzar wasn't even on the throne yet.

Another problem is how the '70 years' are understood: As the period of nations' servitude to Babylon (according to Jeremiah)? Or as the duration of Jerusalem' and Judah's being 'desolated, without an inhabitant' (Russell/Barbour's interpretation resulting from putting together two separate ideas)?

Yet another problem is insisting the Jews were repatriated in 537 BCE (or previously 536 BCE) despite there being no concrete evidence it was 537 and that a 538 BCE return is not only a viable date but more likely.

 

[Evacuated]

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

If you have been told 1,000 times that this idea shows that we put "Bible" chronology over "secular" chronology then the whole idea will have a "ring of truth" -- but it's still dishonest.

No "ring of truth" apparent to me despite the copious repetition. Untruth never "rings true" no matter how often the pull is tugged.