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

[AlanF]

scholar JW pretendus wrote:

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:: LOL! Seventeen lines of evidence from COJ (and of course, from the dozens of recognized scholars he got it from) against Watch Tower quote mining of the Bible! Amazing anyone but a JW could buy this

Thus scholars despite this, still are unable to determine a precise date for Jerusalem's Fall. Which is it, 586 or 587 BCE?

 

I and others have explained this to you ad nauseum: both dates had been advanced since the 19th century. In the 1940s Edwin Thiele did a major study in "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings", and came down on the side of 586 for reasons he explained fairly clearly. Other scholars pointed out that he had missed a few things and came down on the side of 587. The discrepancy is entirely due to the Bible's ambiguity: did Nebuchadnezzar destroy Jerusalem in his 18th or 19th year?

And as I have repeatedly brought out, all descrepancies about 587/586 were resolved in a 2004 JETS article "When Did Jerusalem Fall?" by Rodger C. Young ( https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiImfT-_-rYAhVK62MKHbEuDYAQFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rcyoung.org%2Farticles%2Fjerusalem.pdf&usg=AOvVaw04If9xNNWAyGO0tlNGmHv9 ).

But you know all this, and so your protestations and false dilemmas are deliberate lies.

Most importantly, the 587 date does not occur in a vacuum. As you well know, a host of contemporary Neo-Babylonian documents peg Nebuchadnezzar's accession year at 605 BCE, the capture of Jehoiachin and Jerusalem at 597, Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year to 568, and the fall of Babylon to 539 BCE. These are all derived from the same global set of data. The secular data alone fixes these dates, and biblical data supports them. The Bible, of course, is the only source for the date of Jerusalem's fall. And since the Bible puts Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem in his 18th/19th year, and secular/biblical history puts his reign from 605 to 562 BCE, 607 is impossible, and either 587 or 586 must be correct.

Furthermore, as I have said several times before, biblical scholarship advances glacially slowly. Even though Rodger Young's paper is definitive, and he and others have published other papers confirming the 587 date (and set forth all the biblical evidence in support), it takes a long time in scholarly circles for the information to circulate and be evaluated and gradually accepted.

Here is a list of some modern scholarly sources that cite Rodger Young's work:

"The Reliability of Kings and Chronicles", Michael Gleghorn ( https://probe.org/the-reliability-of-kings-and-chronicles/?print=print ):

<< Thiele did not recognize that a problem he had with the texts of 2 Kings 18 is explained by a co-regency between Ahaz and Hezekiah.{17} His chronology also needed slight adjustments for the reign of Solomon and for the end of the kingdom period.{18} In our own studies we have followed the corrections to Thiele published in several articles by Rodger Young.{19} . . .

Young has also written extensively on why 587 BC, not Thiele’s 586 BC, is the correct date for the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. See “When Did Jerusalem Fall?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47, no. 1 (2004): 21-38 >>

In a book review on "From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology", by Andrew E. Steinmann (
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2012/07/12/Book-Review-From-Abraham-to-Paul-A-Biblical-Chronology-Part-II.aspx ) the reviewer states:

<< Chapter 8 deals with the divided kingdom. The kingdom period ended with the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C., a date that is in agreement with all Scriptural sources for the period and also with Babylonian records for the years preceding and following the capture. >>

An extensive webpage on modern views of Neo-Babylon chronology ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Last_kings_of_judah_synchronisms_20141118_-_PDF_version.pdf ) contains a fairly large table of dates (not reproducible here) and the following information about "Last kings of judah synchronisms":

<<<<
The 37th year of the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar has been unambiguously dated to 568/567 BC based on an ancient astronomical diary (VAT 4956)[1][2]. That, in turn, allowed precise dating of events described in other Babylonian documents of particular importance for Jewish history:

the last Egyptian intervention in Assyria[3]:20 in the summer of the 17th year of Nabopolassar was recorded on tablet BM 21901[4] and has been linked[5]:12-19[6]:416[7]:108[8]:180 to the biblical battle of Megiddo[9][10] and the death of Josiah[11] (usually dated to Sivan[5]:18[6]:418[7]:108[12] or early Tammuz[7]:108[8]:181 609 BC), the three-month reign of Jehoahaz (while Necho II was engaged in fighting for[13]:43[14][15]:184 Assyrians)[8]:181-182[3]:32 and the subsequent installment of Jehoiakim (placed either before[6]:419 or after[8]:181-182 Tishri 1, 609 BC);

the battle of Carchemish in the spring or summer of Nabopolassar's 21st year mentioned on tablet BM 21946[16] took place around Sivan[17]:25[18]:226 605 BC and was identified as the event spoken of in the book of Jeremiah 46:2[17]:24[18]:226[5]:20[19]:290 while the subsequent conquest of Syro-Palestine by Babylonians has been associated with the siege of Jerusalem described in Daniel 1:1[15]:190[13]:66-67[8]:182ff.[17]:26 which in turn enabled scholars to synchronize a number of events recorded only in the Hebrew Scriptures[20][21][22];

the above mentioned tablet BM 21946 speaks of a military campaign in Syro-Palestine during Nebuchadnezzar's 7th year[23], seizing the city of Yaahudu[17]:72 on Adar 2 (dated to March 15/16 - evening to evening -, 597 BC)[17]:33, capturing its king and appoining there a new ruler. This series of events has been unanimously associated with a story found in 2 Chronicles 36:10[17]:34[8]:190 which deals with a siege of Jerusalem by Babylonians (a few months after the death of Jehoiakim)[24], the ensuing deportation of Jehoiachin and the installment of Zedekiah sometime around Nisan 1[25];

the fact of Jehoiachin, his family and servants having been captives in Babylon in the 13th year of Nebuchadnezzar and onwards has been verified following the publication of the so called Jehoiachin's Rations Tablets[26]

the accession year of Amel-Marduk was dated to 562/561 BC on the basis of various documents the best known of which is the Uruk King List (tablet IM 65066)[27]; this information was in turn used to date king Jehoiachin's release from prison on April 3 (Adar 27), 561 BC[28].

No chronicles recording military activities of Nebuchadnezzar during 593 - 562 BC exist except for tablet BM 33041[29] dated to the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar (568/567 BC) and containing description of his army invading Egypt, which has also been cited in the context of predictions found in Ezekiel 29:17-20[30][31][32]. Due to this scarcity of extrabiblical sources one of the most important dates in Jewish history relating to the destruction of Jerusalem[33][34] is a matter of debate with some scholars favouring 587 BC[35][36] while others opting for 586 BC[37][38]. Neither view seems to be a majority[39]:21 and the interpretation depends on a number of factors, especially:

assuming either the accession year system or the non-accession year system for the last kings of Judah;
counting regnal years of the last Jewish rulers from either Nisan 1 or Tishri 1;
chossing either Adar or Nisan 597 BC as the beginning of king Zedekiah's reign and Jehoiachin's exile[40].

An indepth analysis of the subject seems to favour the 587 BC solution at the same time showing that the last kings of Judah may have employed Tishri-based non-accession year system[39]:21-38.

. . .

[39] Young, Rodger C. (March 2004). "When Did Jerusalem Fall?". JETS 47 (1).
>>>>

And of course, you're well aware that the most modern scholarly references prefer 587 over 586. For example,
"The Cambridge Ancient History" (Second Edition, Volume III, Part 2, 1991) on page 234 says that Jerusalem fell "25 August 587" BCE, and a footnote says that other authors date the fall to 15 August 586 BCE.

A quick internet search using Google Scholar for "587 jerusalem" yields the following, among about 60,000 hits:

"Edom and the Fall of Jerusalem, 587 b.c.", Palestine Exploration Quarterly, Volume 114, 1982 - Issue 1

"The Prophecies of Isaiah and the Fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.",  R. E. Clements, Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 30, Fasc. 4 (Oct., 1980), pp. 421-436

"Guilt and Rites of Purification Related to the Fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.", Walter Harrelson, Numen, Vol. 15, Fasc. 3 (Nov., 1968), pp. 218-221

"The Archaeology of the East Slope of Jerusalem and the Terraces of the Kidron", Lawrence E. Stager, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 41, Number 2 | Apr., 1982: "The Neo-Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C."

"The Status of Jerusalem under International Law and United Nations Resolutions",  Henry Cattan, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Spring, 1981), pp. 3-15: "... destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC, Jerusalem was then successively occupied by the Persians ..."

"The Bible and Western Culture", Sam Armato, Author House, 2014: "587 Jerusalem sacked, temple destroyed, Zedekiah taken prisoner, and Judah absorbed into the Babylonian empire."

And some web pages using Google and "587 jerusalem":

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(587_BC).html
<<In 589 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem, culminating in the destruction of the city and its temple in the summer of 587 BC. . .

The Babylonian Chronicles, published in 1956, indicate that Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem the first time putting an end to the reign of Jehoaichin, on 2 Adar (16 March) 597 BC.[11]

There has been some debate as to when the second siege of Jerusalem took place. There is no dispute that Jerusalem fell the second time in the summer month of Tammuz (Jeremiah 52:6), but William F. Albright dates the end of Zedekiah's reign and the fall of Jerusalem to 587 BC, but Edwin R. Thiele offers 586 BC.[12]

Thiele's reckoning is based on the presentation of Zedekiah's reign on an accession basis, which was occasionally used for the kings of Judah. In that case, the year that Zedekiah came to the throne would be his zeroth year; his first full year would be 597/596 BC, and his eleventh year, the year that Jerusalem fell, would be 587/586 BC. Since Judah's regnal years were counted from Tishri in autumn, that would place the end of his reign and the capture of Jerusalem in the summer of 586 BC.[12][13]

However, the Babylonian Chronicles support the enumeration of Zedekiah's reign on a non-accession basis. Zedekiah's first year, when he was installed by Nebuchadnezzar, was, therefore, in 598/597 BC according to Judah's Tishri-based calendar. The fall of Jerusalem, in his eleventh year, would then have been in the summer of 587 BC. The Babylonian Chronicles allow the fairly precise dating of the capture of Jehoiachin and the start of Zedekiah's reign, and it also provide the accession year of Nebuchadnezzar's successor Amel-Marduk (Evil Merodach) as 562/561 BC, the 37th year of Jehoiachin's captivity according to 2 Kings 25:27. The Babylonian records, related to Jehoiachin's reign, are consistent with the fall of the city in 587 BC and so are inconsistent with a 586 date. >>

http://www.galaxie.com/article/bspade18-1-05
"Jerusalem Fell in 587 Not 586 BC" -- By: C. Ermal Allen

http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/faculty/thomas/classes/rgst116b/JewishHistory.html
"The kingdom of Babylon conquered Judah in 587 BCE."

We also know that Josephus clearly dated the beginning of Temple reconstruction after the Return to Judah to Cyrus' 2nd year, and Ezra dates it to the 2nd month of the 2nd year of the Return. Cyrus' 2nd year began Nisan 1, 537 BCE, and Josephus states, in Against Apion, Book I, Chapter 21:

<< Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years; but that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius. >>

Going back 50 years from 537, we get to 587 BCE.

Given the above information, there is no reason whatsoever not to accept 587 BCE as the date of Jerusalem's destruction.

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:: That old fallacy for the thousandth time.

:: The fact is that the Bible itself provides the grist for that mill, by being quite ambiguous about whether Jerusalem was destroyed in Nebuchadnezzar's 18th or 19th year. Some scholars have decided on 586, others on 587, with modern secular scholarship generally preferring 587.

No fallacy here for one only has to look at the scholarly literature to see that there is this uncertainty, a product of their own making when a failure to listen to God's Word is present.

 

You continue to misrepresent the situation, which I have rectified with the above information.

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Now you blame the Bible for the ambiguity

No blame, just the facts. As shown below, the Bible most certainly contains an apparent ambiguity. But modern scholars have resolved it with real evidence, rather than pretending it does not exist. Again I refer the reader to Rodger Young's paper for an in-depth look.

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but how is it that WT scholars are confronted with this alleged 'ambiguity' and yet are able to precisely determine 607 BCE?

Very simple: "WT scholars" ignore the many problems. And because the 1914 doctrine requires 607, that's what they've settled on.

The fact that the Bible itself is ambiguous on the date of Jerusalem's destruction is easily illustrated with two quotations from Jeremiah:

<< . . . in the 19th year of King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar the king of Babylon, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard . . . came into Jerusalem. 13 He burned down the house of Jehovah, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem. . . 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. >> -- Jer. 52:12-15

<< In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem. >> -- Jer. 52:29

So which is it? Did Nebuchadnezzar take exiles in his 18th or 19th year?
This is the fundamental ambiguity the Bible presents regarding the date of Jerusalem's destruction. Bible commentators have wrestled with this for centuries. Only relatively recently have the many thorny problems been solved by proper scholars such as Rodger Young -- and "WT scholars" have ignored most of the problems.
     

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:: Rodger Young did. Carl Olof Jonsson did. Again you lie in God's name.

If that is true then how is it then that 586 BCE still remains even up today in the scholarly literature?

 

As I said, biblical scholarship moves slowly. But as I showed above, more and more modern scholars are moving away from the 586 date and Thiele's handful of unresolved issues that led to his acceptance of 586, given that Young and others have resolved them.
     
 

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:: Totally misleading on all counts. All that happened was that during 1943-1944, Fred Franz decided that 607 should be the date, finally accepting what C. T. Russell and other Bible Students had known as far back as 1912. And of course, the correct dates that Franz used to manufacture 606/607 were well known to proper scholars well back in the 19th century.

Proof of my above statements:

The WTS knew that the 536 and 606 BCE dates were wrong for many years prior to 1943. The 1917 book The Finished Mystery listed 607 BCE as the start of the Gentile times. The March 13, 1935 Golden Age listed on page 369 both 537 BCE for the "Edict of Cyrus" and 607 BCE for the start of the Gentile Times. One of Russell's trusted lieutenants, P. S. L. Johnson, later wrote that in 1912 he approached Russell with the information that 606 was wrong, and 607 was the correct date, but Russell ignored it. In 1913, British Bible Student and confidant of Russell, Morton Edgar, published "Great Pyramid Passages", in which he also used 607 BCE for Jerusalem's destruction. The two books of Edgar and his brother John were widely read among Bible Students, and Russell and other "WT scholars" would surely have known of Edgar's contributions to WTS chronology.

Many scholars over the centuries accepted 536 BCE as Cyrus' first year, and it was accepted as such at least as far back as the 17th century. For example, the famous Bible chronology given by Bishop Ussher used that date. So did the chronologies given by the many commentators who engaged in prophetic speculation that Barbour and Russell so heavily relied upon, such as E. B. Elliott and Joseph Seiss. But Barbour and Russell gave no references in their 1877 book "Three Worlds" to any scholarly works that would support their claim about 536 BCE. They also claimed that Ptolemy's canon supported a date for Nebuchadnezzar's first year as being "nineteen years before the seventy years captivity of Jerusalem." Their book does support Nebuchadnezzar's accession year as being nineteen years before Jerusalem's destruction, but their chronology implies that Nebuchadnezzar's first year was in 625 BCE, whereas Ptolemy's canon implies 605 BCE for his accession year.

The table below shows three reference works that had put Nebuchadnezzar's first year in 605 or 606 BCE; other scholars of the time agree closely with these dates. Given the attention to detail Barbour and Russell showed elsewhere it seems almost impossible they could have missed this point. It seems they simply wanted to believe that their interpretation of the 70 years was correct, and they ignored, at least in print, all evidence against their interpretation. It is enlightening that they claimed Ptolemy's canon supports the 536 BCE date, but were silent about what the canon implies for the actual date of Nebuchadnezzar's first year. They were also silent about scholarly support of dates for the destruction of Jerusalem, which the table below shows scholars said occurred in 588 to 586 BCE, whereas Barbour and Russell claimed it occurred in 606 BCE.

An examination of some scholarly works available in the latter half of the 19th century proves Barbour and Russell's claim that their dates were firmly established was not true. Virtually every reference work used a slightly different set of dates for key events in the Neo-Babylonian period, but they generally differed by only one to three years. The following table shows three sets of dates for important events from this period, from reference works available in the period in which Barbour and Russell, and later Russell alone, wrote. These are: McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, 1871; Smith's Bible Dictionary, William Smith, 1864; Encyclopaedia Biblica, Cheyne and Black, 1899. Compare these with the currently accepted dates, which are also listed. See also Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 75, R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Brown University Press, Providence, 1956, 1971.

    Event                              McClintock   Smith's Bible   Encyclopaedia    Current
                                             & Strong's     Dictionary         Biblica

Nebuchadnezzar's accession   606           605                605                      605
Jehoiachin's deportation           598           597                597                      597
Jerusalem's destruction            588           586                586                      587/6
Babylon's fall                               538           539                538                      539
Cyrus' 1st year                            538           538                538                      538
Return of Jewish exiles             536           536                538                      538/7

From the table it is clear that Barbour and Russell's key date of 536 BCE for Cyrus' first year was not universally accepted, since it is not listed in any of these references. They could have chosen any of the dates as a basis for their calculations, but only by choosing 536 BCE could they claim that six thousand years of human history ended in 1873, which Barbour had done as early as 1868.

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:: Until 1943, the WTS claimed 606 BCE for Jerusalem's fall and the start of the Gentile times. In the middle of the 1943 book "The Truth Shall Make You Free" the WTS moved the date for the start of the Gentile times back by one year, leaving its claim that Jerusalem was destroyed in 606 BCE intact throughout the entire book. In a thoroughly dishonest exposition on pages 238-239 the book made this change. The result was that the Gentile times began in October, 607 BCE, while Jerusalem was destroyed ten months later in August, 606 BCE! The date for Jerusalem's fall was changed, in a dishonest footnote, on page 171 of the 1944 book "The Kingdom Is At Hand".

Sound Methodology and recent scholarship that began in 1942 were the causes for the change and such adjustments were made in 1944 as you correctly state.

 

This is yet another example where you use weasel words to convey a false impression. You mention "recent scholarship that began in 1942" as if that were new to the world of scholarship, whereas it was only "new" to Fred Franz -- and it was not even "new" to him, because the reality is that Franz merely began to take account of it in his writings in WTS literature in 1944, whereas it was actually known to "WT scholars" since 1912 and to secular scholars long before that.

In your previous post you wrote a grossly misleading statement:

<< and yet WT scholars since 1944 have established 607 BCE as such a precise date following on the back of scholarship first published in 1942, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations, University of Chicago. >>

The fact is that they did not "establish" 607 as a precise date, but merely stated that it was a precise date

You imply that "WT scholars" came to recognize their 607 date only a bit after some new scholarship appeared in 1942. Yet in the above exposition I've proved that these "scholars" knew the "correct" date as early as 1912. And in the August 15, 1968 Watchtower an extensive series of articles was published that contained a chart showing that the correct information was known by "the chronologers of Christendom" at least as far back as 1907 (The Catholic Encyclopedia is referenced, showing Nabonidus' reign as 555-539 BCE).

Furthermore, your reference to "Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations" is flawed. No such reference is listed anywhere in WTS publications, so far as I can see, but searching the Internet brings up an apparently equivalent study in "Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization (SAOC)" in an article "Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C. - A.D. 45" by Richard Parker and Waldo Dubberstein ( https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-24-babylonian-chronology-626-bc-ad-45 ), who also in 1942 published their booklet by the same title, which has become the most accepted modern reference on Babylonian chronology. So far as I can see, the 1942 booklet is virtually identical to the 1942 SAOC article.

This material by Parker and Dubberstein also proves that correct dates for the Neo-Babylonian period were known long before 1942. The introduction on the above-linked page states:

<< Recent additions to our knowledge of intercalary months in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods have enabled us to improve upon the results of our predecessors in this field, though our great debt to F. X. Kugler and D. Sidersky for providing the background of our work is obvious. >>

Francis Xavier Kugler published his most significant work (in German, several volumes) in 1907-1924 in "Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel" (something like "Astronomy and Astro Services(?) in Babylon"). Kugler in turn based some of his work on the late-19th century writings of Strassmaier and other scholars.

Assuming that Jehovah was on top of things, surely he would have guided the eminent scholars in the Watch Tower organization to the correct information immediately upon it becoming available in the 19th century, rather than waiting until 1944.

The fact that no such guidance occurred proves that "WT scholars" are as disconnected from God as you are.

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You seem to be troubled by the progress of scholarship but that is the 'nature of the beast'.

Not a bit. What troubles me is when supposed scholars lie in God's name, as I've shown that Mommy Watch Tower and you are so proficient at.

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:: When a religious doctrine like "1914" is founded on a false date like 606 BCE, its entire exposition of biblical chronology will be wrong. And when the doctrine becomes fully set, and historical sources demand some revision but the doctrine must remain intact by adjusting the calculations leading to it, you KNOW the whole structure is built on fantasy.

No.

 

Yes.

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Your opinion is delusional it is simply a fantasy that Bible Prophecy could be attached to dead-end dates such as 576 or 587 but rather 607 attached to 1914 breathes life into our modern history because we are still feeling the consequences today from the Great War.

Not in the way that Mommy Watch Tower claims. The population killers (earthquakes, famine, pestilence, war) that it claims have been operating on an unprecedentedly massive scale since 1914 are simply not here. The fact that we are experiencing an unprecedented population explosion is unassailable proof.

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A belief in the Holy Bible as God's Inspired Word is not fantasy.

JWs continue to mistake what Mommy Watch Tower claims for what the Bible says.

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Further, WT Chronology has proved itself in so many ways and has pushed Biblical Scholarship to greater heights.

Nonsense. See above.

AlanF

[scholar JW]

Alan F

Could you have tried a much longer post? Methinks a touch of desperation is on the horizon.

49 minutes ago, AlanF said:

I and others have explained this to you ad nauseum: both dates had been advanced since the 19th century. In the 1940s Edwin Thiele did a major study in "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings", and came down on the side of 586 for reasons he explained fairly clearly. Other scholars pointed out that he had missed a few things and came down on the side of 587. The discrepancy is entirely due to the Bible's ambiguity: did Nebuchadnezzar destroy Jerusalem in his 18th or 19th year?

I am fully aware of the 586/7BCE controversy within scholarship so I do not need information about it from you. The simple fact of the matter is whatever the reasons scholars have not solved the problem. WT scholars have solved the problem since 1944 using the same regnal data albeit with a different methodology. Neb's 18/19th year is well accommodated within our scheme of Chronology.

57 minutes ago, AlanF said:

And as I have repeatedly brought out, all descrepancies about 587/586 were resolved in a 2004 JETS article "When Did Jerusalem Fall?" by Rodger C. Young ( https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiImfT-_-rYAhVK62MKHbEuDYAQFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rcyoung.org%2Farticles%2Fjerusalem.pdf&usg=AOvVaw04If9xNNWAyGO0tlNGmH

No. Such discrepancies may have been resolved to Rodger Young's satisfaction but as his study was published in 2004 with his endorsement of 587 BCE for the Fall the question remains: Has this caused a change in OT Chronology? The answer is clearly NO! for the simple reason that the scholarly literature published since then also endorses 586 BCE. It is pointless providing sources that favour 587 when I could equally cite sources that prefer 586 so we end up running around in circles for as far as I am concerned the debate continues. You say that biblical scholarship is glacial, moving slowly and I agree however it is some fourteen years since Young's thesis and nothing really has shifted.

1 hour ago, AlanF said:

We also know that Josephus clearly dated the beginning of Temple reconstruction after the Return to Judah to Cyrus' 2nd year, and Ezra dates it to the 2nd month of the 2nd year of the Return. Cyrus' 2nd year began Nisan 1, 537 BCE, and Josephus states, in Against Apion, Book I, Chapter 21

Bunkum. Scholars prefer 537 as shown in research by Steinmann cited by you above. SDA scholars prefer 536 and again Steinmann suggests 535 BCE

1 hour ago, AlanF said:

So which is it? Did Nebuchadnezzar take exiles in his 18th or 19th year?
This is the fundamental ambiguity the Bible presents regarding the date of Jerusalem's destruction. Bible commentators have wrestled with this for centuries. Only relatively recently have the many thorny problems been solved by proper scholars such as Rodger Young -- and "WT scholars" have ignored most of the problems.

Can't you solve it? I thought you had the 'smarts'. Perhaps you should research WT publications to see how the problem has been solved.

1 hour ago, AlanF said:

From the table it is clear that Barbour and Russell's key date of 536 BCE for Cyrus' first year was not universally accepted, since it is not listed in any of these references. They could have chosen any of the dates as a basis for their calculations, but only by choosing 536 BCE could they claim that six thousand years of human history ended in 1873, which Barbour had done as early as 186

What this table demonstrates and your comments preceding your table is the simple fact that Bible Chronology was in a state of flux and remained thus until 1994 when WT Chronology became more solidly based no doubt due to the pioneering work by Parker and Dubberstein in 1942.

1 hour ago, AlanF said:

Furthermore, your reference to "Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations" is flawed. No such reference is listed anywhere in WTS publications, so far as I can see, but searching the Internet brings up an apparently equivalent study in "Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization (SAOC)" in an article "Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C. - A.D. 45" by Richard Parker and Waldo Dubberstein ( https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/saoc/saoc-24-babylonian-chronology-626-bc-ad-45 ), who also in 1942 published their booklet by the same title, which has become the most accepted modern reference on Babylonian chronology. So far as I can see, the 1942 booklet is virtually identical to the 1942 SAOC article.

.Correct and that was the scholarship that I alluded to and it is possibly the case that WT scholars were amongst the first to use such research. Edwin Thiele published his seminal thesis on the Divided Monarchy in 1944 and that was the same year that WT Chronology was established. I must access that article and check it out sometime for a matter of historical interest to examine the parallels between SDA Chronology originating in the fifties and WT Chronology over a similar period. Enough meandering!

1 hour ago, AlanF said:

Assuming that Jehovah was on top of things, surely he would have guided the eminent scholars in the Watch Tower organization to the correct information immediately upon it becoming available in the 19th century, rather than waiting until 1944

Well he did just that for the events in 1944 were most providential in not just in terms of the development of Bible Chronology but also in other areas that bore fruit with the production of the NWT first published in 1950. That decade was most fruitful for Scholarship as WT scholars had now turned Christendom's scholars upside down. Marvellous!!!!

scholar JW emeritus

[JW Insider]

20 hours ago, AlanF said:

What troubles me is when supposed scholars lie in God's name

I have to agree. It's very clear that @scholar JW has been dishonest.

Based on a long record of his dishonesty, it does not look promising that he will come clean any time soon. Yet it is clear, too, that he is merely trying to express the Watch Tower Society's position. I think this makes it clear why the WTS has nearly always avoided the evidence, sometimes by misrepresenting the evidence, but usually by just ignoring the evidence. The WTS makes similar bald assertions without ever allowing the evidence to be close enough or clear enough to make a true comparison.

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

10 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

have to agree. It's very clear that @scholar JW has been dishonest.

Based on a long record of his dishonesty, it does not look promising that he will come clean any time soon. Yet it is clear, too, that he is merely trying to express the Watch Tower Society's position. I think this makes it clear why the WTS has nearly always avoided the evidence, misrepresented the evidence, but usually just ignores the evidence. The WTS makes similar bald assertions without ever allowing the evidence to be close enough or clear enough to make a true comparison.

Nonsense. The Watch Tower Society does not need dishonesty to advance Bible truth and to accuse me also of this is most insulting. Over the decades WT scholars have plainly defended their Chronology and they have every right to have their own scheme of Chronology as other scholars have going right back to James Ussher. Chronology is not an exact science and there will always a variety of interpretations and methods in trying to put the Chronology in the Bible into our modern Calendar.

scholar JW emeritus

[JW Insider]

14 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

Well he did just that for the events in 1944 were most providential in not just in terms of the development of Bible Chronology but also in other areas that bore fruit with the production of the NWT first published in 1950.

The October 1904 Watchtower, page 296 [Reprints p.3437] included the following as a Question from a Reader. Note especially the first line of the answer:

THE TIME OF HARVEST.

AUTHOR of MILLENNIAL DAWN and Editor of
ZION'S WATCH TOWER:--

Dear Sir,--. . . Now if this, the common reckoning, be correct, it would make the Times of the Gentiles to begin nineteen years later than you estimate, namely, in B.C. 587, instead of B.C. 606;--and this in turn would make those times end nineteen years later than you have reckoned,--in October, A.D. 1933, instead of October, 1914. What do you say to this? . . .

* * *

We reply that there are too many ifs in the proposition, and that they are all abundantly contradicted by facts and Scripture, and are therefore not worthy the slightest consideration.

 

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

Notice this:"If the common reckoning be correct" and that statement underscores the perennial problem in Chronology dealt with most satisfactorily in 1944.

scholar JW emeritus

[JW Insider]

For @Arauna, @James Thomas Rook Jr., @TrueTomHarley, @AlanF, I should let you know that a few more posts were just moved over to the thread linked below. They were more about "evolution" etc, than about this particular topic. I'll copy back some portions of those posts that were appropriate to this 607 topic.

https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/51784-monkeys-typewriters-and-evolution/

 

 

 

[JW Insider]

The following are excerpts taken from posts that were moved because most of the post was about another topic. I'm repeating the points back here that do belong under this topic:

 

On 1/21/2018 at 9:07 AM, Arauna said:

Furthermore,  I would hope very much that the JWs timeline does not fit with secular history..... because despite everyone denying it....the Egyptian timeline is totally out of whack.... and scientists in Assyriology have to make the battles with Egypt fit  into Egyptian chronology.    

607BCE is best explained from the sources which confirm 538BCE as the year that Cyrus took the title of the "king of four corners of the earth " in Babylon and then proceeded to send the 12 tribes back to their country. This date is a secular date which is accurate and can be verified from many sources.

To which AlanF already responded:

 

Quote

Furthermore,  I would hope very much that the JWs timeline does not fit with secular history..... because despite everyone denying it....the Egyptian timeline is totally out of whack....

Wrong. Egyptian history has some issues, but almost all historians agree that it's basically sound.

Quote

and scientists in Assyriology have to make the battles with Egypt fit  into Egyptian chronology.

According to who?

Quote

607BCE is best explained from the sources which confirm 538BCE as the year that Cyrus took the title of the "king of four corners of the earth " in Babylon and then proceeded to send the 12 tribes back to their country. This date is a secular date which is accurate and can be verified from many sources.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, exactly the same evidence that Mommy Watch Tower cites in support of 538 also supports 587/586 as the date of Jerusalem's destruction, as well as many other historical events in Neo-Babylon history that Mommy disagrees with. The only reason the WTS sticks with 607 is that its entire religious structure would collapse without 1914. Remember that the idea was first put forth in 1875 by Nelson Barbour, a "Second Adventist" prophetic speculator most of whose doctrinal claims the WTS has rejected. And even then, Barbour and C. T. Russell claimed, not 607 as their magic date, but 606 BCE. And the WTS stuck with this 606 date until 1943/1944!

The 607 date is disproved by copious amounts of evidence. All told, 587 for Jerusalem's destruction stands up to all tests, secular and biblical.

AlanF

------------------------------

 

[AlanF]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

For @Arauna, @James Thomas Rook Jr., @TrueTomHarley, @AlanF, I should let you know that a few more posts were just moved over to the thread linked below. They were more about "evolution" etc, than about this particular topic. I'll copy back some portions of those posts that were appropriate to this 607 topic.

https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/51784-monkeys-typewriters-and-evolution/

 

 

 

No problem. I think we can multitask.

This just goes to show how easy it is for a thread to get off track with one comment.

AlanF

[AlanF]

scholar JW horribilis said:

Quote

 

:: Yes and no. If the writers were honest and interested in telling the truth to their readers, yes, there would be no need. But because a good deal of WTS teaching is built on its own tradition and on many falsehoods, the writers understand that they MUST lie to their readers by quote mining and various other dishonest scholastic practices. Just as you do.

In the final analysis it is up to the readers to judge the matter whether scholastic dishonesty is present in WT publications.

 

Yes, just as I and thousands of other honest people have done.

Except that the matter of honesty in such matters is often objectively determinable. If the Bible says "these nations" and someone says, "No, it says 'the Jews'", it is an objective fact that the person is lying.

Quote

My experience over many decades in reading and studying such materials finds no evidence at all.

Your confirmation bias blinds you to many facts.
     

Quote

 

::  In principle they can, but hardly any JW readers do. Rather, they assume -- wrongly -- that WTS writers are giving them fair quote

I have always found that the quotes are fair and reasonable

 

More confirmation bias. "My religion, may it always be right! But right or wrong, my religion!"

Quote

but if you find such writings abominable then why are you obsessed with WT literature?

Obsessed? No, concerned with the bad effect that any cult literature has on its readers.
     

Quote

 

:: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! "By your own mouth you are condemned." What do you think substituting "[1776]" for "1876" is? Honest quoting? Or "[607]" for "587"? Honest quoting?

:: Some twenty five years ago I carefully analyzed the 1985 "Creation" book. I found upward of 100 instances of quote-mining, flat out lies, misrepresentations, misunderstandings of science, and just about every scholastic sin that exists. By 1992 the book was already infamous in scientific Usenet circles as a laughingstock, a standard creationist parody of science. See "The WTS View of Creation and Evolution":

Such insertions are simply an insertion- a corrective, in order to explain to the reader the truth of the matter.

 

Nope. They are there to deceive the reader by making him think that secular sources support bogus Watch Tower tradition.

Quote

Yes I am familiar with your bragging about the Creation book but really you obviously writing with a biased mind so you will find problems everywhere.

Wrong. Many besides me have found the same serious defects. Some, years before I delved into it.

Quote

I read the Creation book and had no problems and still use it to this day

Confirmation bias again. You have no qualifications to judge, and you have not looked up any of the bogus citations in the book.

Quote

and by the way even Richard Dawkins found no problem with it even though he disagreed.

Evidence? Not likely. Or if you can manage to find evidence, and post it, we will find that it misrepresents Dawkins as thoroughly as you misrepresent even the Bible.

Quote

If this publication was so notorious as you claim then Dawkins would not have cited it. Go figure!

I spoke to Dawkins in person about this book, and he agreed that it's trash.

So let's test your ability to detect problems in WTS literature. Tell us, please, if the following statement on page 143 of the Creation book is an accurate representation of the quoted source:

<< Zoologist Richard Lewontin said that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed.” He views them as “the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.”5 It will be useful to consider some of this evidence. >>

Excuses will be noted and used as further proof that you're no more a scholar than you are an octopus.

AlanF

[AlanF]

James Thomas Rook Jr. wrote:

Quote

 

How did the people count time back then .... from January 1 to January 1 being one year .... or April  22nd to April 22nd being one year?

IF the Egyptians, Syrians, Babylonians, and Jews all had different start and end dates.... you could gain or lose a year right there.

 

This is a rather complicated subject, and not one that can adequately be answered here. I'll answer off the top of my head; you can look up details for yourself.

The fundamental basis for ancient chronology in modern scholarship is the Julian calendar, which Julius Caesar commissioned a few decades BCE. It was replaced in much of Europe by the Gregorian calendar in the 1500s. Obviously these calendars were not used by the Jews, Babylonians or Egyptians. The Jews used a lunar calendar which had to be adjusted every 2-3 years to keep the lunar months aligned with the solar year. They numbered their months from Nisan (1) through Adar (12), and every 2-3 years added another month in the winter. The northern kingdom and southern kingdom seem to have used somewhat different methods of enumerating the reigns of their kings. There was a religious year beginning with Nisan (1) and a secular year beginning with Tishri (7), and depending on unknown factors they started numbering kings' reigns in Nisan or Tishri. They also seem to have started the enumeration with 0 or 1, so that the year the king began reigning would be called his accession year, or his first year. The Babylonians were more consistent, always using a lunar calendar beginning in Nisan, and enumerating kings' reigns from the accession year (year 0). The Egyptian calendar was simpler: it had 12 months of 30 days each, totaling 360 days. They added another 5 days in the winter. But because the solar year is actually about 365 1/4 days, and the Egyptians failed to account for it, the calendar drifted out of sync with the seasons. Every 4 x 365 1/4 days it would make a full "circle", so to speak. No problem within one human generation, but it made long-term calendar calculations a real headache.

If you really want to know more, get hold of "Handbook of Biblical Chronology" by Jack Finegan.

AlanF

[JW Insider]

 

2 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

LOL!!!

Thanks for providing this. In fact, this entire question, as worded, was what I was originally going to discuss with @Nana Fofana in response to this particular post of hers, so I'll go ahead and do that now:

On 1/20/2018 at 10:08 PM, Nana Fofana said:

You say debate has gone on long enough -41 years- but it's brand new to me.  I hadn't read any debates on chronology on some sites I won't name, since I'd like them to  stay up a little longer.  But once I did, there was absolutely no question in my mind who was right. And it was the one person on the JW side against multiple opponents on the other side.  Opponents were all mutually congratulatory, and seemed to be in perfect agreement  with one another in their  mocking assessments of the object of their bullying and the 'obvious' supposed non-merits of his case.  Yet they were so wrong. It made me think -if they weren't faking- how seductive consensus must be for certain or many or even most people ?  Maybe they think, like Pilate, "What is truth?", like truth doesn't exist, or doesn't matter.  And without the true God, you gotta have your posse [no double entendre intended] and mutually assured destruction against other posses, as a deterrent. I was very encouraged to detect "the pattern of healthful words" spoken, and learned a lot.

@Nana Fofana,

First of all it should be obvious that this debate has gone on much longer than 41 years. Among Watchtower readers alone, it has gone on for over 100 years as you can see above. In the May 15, 1922 Watchtower, Rutherford was still dealing with the same issue about the 19 to 20 year "gap" in the Watchtower chronology that does not exist in the actual Biblical or secular evidence. Note this from page 147, which are the opening words in the article called "Chronology:"

• "WE HAVE no doubt whatever in regard to the chronology relating to the dates of 1874, 1914, 1918, and 1925. Some claim to have found new light in connection with the period of "seventy years of desolation'' and Israel's captivity in Babylon, and are zealously seeking to make others believe that Brother Russell was in error."

Of course, the article goes on to use as its primary proof that Russell (the one and only  faithful and discreet slave) had God's approval and therefore would not have been wrong about this chronology. Still, it does offer a few additional reasons why these dates are correct:

• "SOUGHT TO DISCREDIT BIBLE . . . The worldly-wise have always disliked the Bible . . . The adversary [Satan] has always endeavored to deceive people. No doubt he has had much to do towards causing the confusion in the historical records of ancient history." [Always trying to put the argument into a polemic light, so that it appears that whoever is asking is some kind of "Devil" or antagonist to the truth, or an apostate. Some things never change.] 
• "Practically all agree that B. C. 536 was 'the first year of Cyrus'" [Not a true statement at the time, nor when Russell stated the same, nor is it true today.]
• "There is no contention about the first year of Cyrus being B. C. 536."  [This was also not a true statement, of course.]
• "The Bible locates the time definitely as 3522 A. M. ( 606 B. C.), the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar. Secular historians vary considerably." [This was also a false statement, of course.]
• "We find the Jews still under the yoke of Babylon, bringing the date down 12 years later, or to 442 B.C. This would make a period of 94 years after the return of borne in 536 B.C. If we add the 70 years to that we have a total of at least 164 years, 606 to 442 B.C. under the king of Babylon." [Obviously false about the king of Babylon and the dates, but it was a way of avoiding the possibility that the 70 years applied to the kingdom of Babylon, as stated in Jeremiah.]
• "UNRELIABLE SECULAR CHRONOLOGY How can this be harmonized with secular chronology, which states that Nebuchadnezzar began to reign in 606 B.C., reigned 43 years, and died in 561 B.C.? We are not called upon to harmonize the Bible with secular chronology any more than we are expected to harmonize the gospel of the Bible with secular creeds." [Notice that Rutherford does not seem to notice that he is relying on secular chronology for his dates, too.]
• Recapitulating then, the Bible record is conclusive that the first year of Nebuchadnezzar synchronizes with the fourth year of king Jehoiakim, which was the year 3503 A. M. or 625 B. C. [Of course there is nothing "conclusive" here, only evidence that Rutherford wants to use a different secular date than the secular date supported by evidence.]

And of course, the main point of the argument is really about Russell, even though it adds some new dates that Russell hadn't mentioned, but which were promoted as supposedly clear and obvious extensions of Russell's original chronology:

• "STAMPED WITH GOD'S APPROVAL  It was on this line of reckoning that the dates 1874, 1914, and 1918 were located; and the Lord has placed the stamp of his seal upon 1914 and 1918 beyond any possibility of erasure. What further evidence do we need? . . . it is an easy matter to locate 1925, probably the fall, for the beginning of the antitypical jubilee. There can be no more question about 1925 than there was about 1914."

With this in mind, notice how important it must have been to position any questioning of the chronology as angry and prideful Satan-like questioning against a humble and thoughtful Biblical position that had Jehovah's stamp of approval. This is merely a way to "tickle the ears" so that people think they are hearing a "pattern of healthful words." Note how antagonistic the questioner is meant to sound when in the question to Russell the question was characterized like this: "Are you humble enough to acknowledge that I have struck some new light and that you and all DAWN readers have been 'all wrong,' walking in darkness?"

But the actual arguments had been presented in the same scholarly works that Barbour and Russell had depended on, without any antagonism towards those who had used wrong evidence for their dates. There were many different ways of attaching a chronology to the Bible prophecies and Russell himself had admitted this in the past. Some Bible commentators had been discussing these types of discrepencies since the 1850's and 1860's. But it clearly served a purpose to try to present the questioner as antagonistic toward not just Russell, but all people who considered themselves to be seekers of truth and light.

Rutherford did the same thing as you can see in his article. Yet, ironically, the words turned out NOT to be true, even though it was Satan who was behind the questioning and Jehovah who had given his stamp of approval. In spite of this everything that had been said about 1874, 1914, 1918, and 1925 - beyond any possibility of erasure - had to be "erased." This includes even what was being said about 1914 at this time. It turned out NOT to be the time of violence and chaos that had been predicted. It turned out NOT to be the time that resulted in the end of the Gentile domination over the Jewish nation as predicted. None of what was predicted for 1914 turned out to be true.