SECULAR EVIDENCE and NEO-BABYLONIAN CHRONOLOGY (Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, etc.)

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

4 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

There can be only one reason you would try to support the claim that it was providential that the leadings of the Spirit led God's people to make a mistake. Trying to blame a mistake on Jehovah and the leading of the Spirit is hopefully just a matter of you trying to provoke the way an "Internet troll" would, and not your real feelings about Jehovah and the Spirit.

Chronology is not an exact science for it requires methodology and interpretation which is a large room for error and if we wish to construct an authentic Bible Chronology then we must rely on scholars who are attuned to the Spirit, faithfully paying attention to God's Word and in time we now have that Strong Cable of Bible Chronology as with the greatest translation of the Bible ever made -the NWT. Praise the Lord!!!

scholar JW

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

13 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Your guess is wrong.  Even in 1823, John Aquila Brown ran the 2,520 years from 604 B.C. to 1917 A.D. So he knew there was no zero year, and he knew it was Nebuchadnezzar's first year in 604 according to the standard NB chronology, not the WTS chronology.

So what. it was the Chronology of the times and Bible Chronology was not then yet fully developed and he did not compute the 70 years.

scholar JW

[AlanF]

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

December 1, 1912. Page 377-8. Reprints page 5141.

I'll put the first page on, but if it's hard to read I've expanded the paragraphs about the question:

Instead of defending the fact that there was NO zero year, the answer is a bit wishy-washy. He appears to use the fact that astronomers use the zero year, but he doesn't clarify (or doesn't know) that this for a different reason and that astronomers did this with full knowledge that the actual transition from CE to AD (BCE/CE) did not have it. But the wishy-washiness served the purpose of allowing Russell to be off by one year, as had been hinted at earlier. Later Watchtowers said that Russell had announced the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, but because no one had been able to discern 1914, the Watchtower in January 1916 shows Russell claiming that the Gentile Times ended in 1915.

All of this proves what we already know -- Russell was incompetent as a commentator on chronological matters. From his earliest days he used 1914, not 1915, as the end of the Gentile times. The March, 1880 Watch Tower, on page 2, said:

<< "The Times of the gentiles" extend to 1914, and the heavenly kingdom will not have full sway till then, but as a "Stone" the kingdom of God is set up "in the days of these (ten gentile) kings," and by consuming them it becomes a universal kingdom -- a "great mountain and fills the whole Earth." >>

It was only after about 1904, when many of the dire events Russell had predicted had not materialized, that he began waffling about 1914/1915.

For a comprehensive look at Russell's dates, see the articles beginning here: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/part-1-jws-beliefs-about-chronology-in.html

[AlanF]

2 hours ago, César Chávez said:

That's right. Ignorance is no excuse not to understand. Therefore, I will apply your words to you. You just can't seem to accept, being obtuse for over 15 years by opposers can't be rewritten by actual facts.

English, please!

2 hours ago, César Chávez said:

However, show the people how you fit the third year or the fourth year, a calendar difference of King Jehoiakim to your false claim of knowing scripture? Allen Smith mentioned it long ago. You, O'Maly, JWinsider couldn't answer it way back then, just like you can't answer it now, using secular evidence.

Nonsense. I covered this in an essay written in 1992: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/part-3-scriptural-arguments.html . The subject is covered elsewhere in that series as well. And of course, I've covered it in numerous online forums since then.

Since you can neither read nor write intelligible English, you have no business commenting on rocket-science matters like these.

[scholar JW]

Alan de Fool

1 minute ago, AlanF said:

All of this proves what we already know -- Russell was incompetent as a commentator on chronological matters. From his earliest days he used 1914, not 1915, as the end of the Gentile times. The March, 1880 Watch Tower, on page 2, said:

<< "The Times of the gentiles" extend to 1914, and the heavenly kingdom will not have full sway till then, but as a "Stone" the kingdom of God is set up "in the days of these (ten gentile) kings," and by consuming them it becomes a universal kingdom -- a "great mountain and fills the whole Earth." >>

Utter rubbish. Russell proved himself a competent chronographer. One only has to read his earlier volume  later titled   Studies in the Scriptures, Study II, 'The Time is at Hand, Vol.2. and for its time it was exceptional as to breadth and in-depth coverage of the subject. His discussion of the date of our Lord's Birth is masterful in scholarship remaining rock solid even up today despite the fact that scholars disagree on the date but many have agreed on that earlier position proposed by Russell and his associates.

15 minutes ago, AlanF said:

It was only after about 1904, when many of the dire events Russell had predicted had not materialized, that he began waffling about 1914/1915.

Well he got the end of the Gentile Times right in 1914 and by the way Alan you still have not answered my simple question seeing as you present yourself as a competent Chronologist. How about it?

scholar JW

[scholar JW]

Alan de Fool

10 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Nonsense. I covered this in an essay written in 1992: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/part-3-scriptural-arguments.html . The subject is covered elsewhere in that series as well. And of course, I've covered it in numerous online forums since then.

All that you do is simply quote or borrow from others. Your essay is just a rehash of COJ.'s  thesis with nothing new and you still have not answered my question. Have you?

scholar JW

[AlanF]

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

The so-called error that Alan F in his ignorance and cannot even give the modern calendation for the first year of Cyrus is simply facile.

Still can't write non-gibberish English. Perhaps using Grammarly or Microsoft Word would help. Of course, since you can't even work the copy/paste buttons on your keyboard, this would be rather difficult for you.

As for your lie that I cannot give such a "calendation", that's nonsense. I repeat: I'm not playing your games. The date is given in Julian years in almost all sources, of which you're well aware. Conversion from Julian to Gregorian dates is trivially accomplished by various means, the simplest being to find a website that does it. There are dozens. Here: https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1227757509

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

The above quoted WT article explains the zero-year problem nicely.

Bullshit. See if you can do it in your own words.

Oh yeah. You're too stupid to know how to quote even the Bible, much less summarize this rocket-science material.

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

No doubt if you checked reference works, Bible dictionaries and other works on Chronology of that period then a similar error would have been made.

There's that gibberish English again. Don't they speak English in Australia?

And of course, it's immaterial whether works on Chronology available in Russell's day made errors. The most important for our thread, based on quite understandable historical errors, was that most writers dated the fall of Babylon to 538 BCE rather than 539, and certainly not 536. The 538 date seems to have gone back at least as far as Bishop Ussher and Isaac Newton. I don't know where the 536 date came from, although Russell always claimed it was firmly established.

But in no case I'm aware of did any of these, aside from the demonstrably incompetent Nelson Barbour and those from whom he borrowed the 1914 chronology, neglect the "zero year" consideration.

An examination of scholarly works available in the latter half of the nineteenth century proves Barbour and Russell's claim that their dates were firmly established is 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.

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         537/8

And of course, as usual you miss the most important point of all: far from being "providential" (which means "according to God's will") Russell's errors were purely human errors. So the Revelation Climax book and other lying publications actually blamed the Watchtower's God Jehovah for the Watchtower Society's chronological errors.

3 hours ago, scholar JW said:

WT scholars one informed of the error made the adjustment establishing by 1963 our superior strong cable of WT chronology. 

There's that gibberish English again. Don't they speak English in Australia?

[AlanF]

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

Alan de Fool

Perhaps, but it would be better than being like you -- a pathological liar who falsely claims to stand for God's standards of Truth, Justice and The American Way.

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

Utter rubbish. Russell proved himself a competent chronographer.

Wrong. One only has to read his works and compare them to real history and events to see this.

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

One only has to read his earlier volume  later titled   Studies in the Scriptures, Study II, 'The Time is at Hand, Vol.2. and for its time it was exceptional as to breadth and in-depth coverage of the subject.

And every prediction for the events leading up to 1914 was dead wrong. Everything observable failed.

I've produced a fairly comprehensive list of Russell's failed predictions and prognostications here: https://critiquesonthewatchtower.org/old-articles/2006/02/part-1-jws-beliefs-about-chronology-in.html

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

His discussion of the date of our Lord's Birth is masterful in scholarship remaining rock solid even up today despite the fact that scholars disagree on the date but many have agreed on that earlier position proposed by Russell and his associates.

Ah, yes: the fact that current incompetent Watchtower "scholars" continue with Russell's incompetence proves that Russell was a brilliant scholar. LOL!

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

Well he got the end of the Gentile Times right in 1914

Wrong. Everything observable that he predicted for that nonsense failed. Everything! A completely invisible "end of Gentile times" is in no way a fulfillment of a prediction. Should I quote Carl Sagan on that again?

27 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

and by the way Alan you still have not answered my simple question seeing as you present yourself as a competent Chronologist. How about it?

See above. And of course, your game is simple-mindedly transparent. All you're doing is trying to create irrelevant side issues in your silly attempt to sidetrack the theme of this thread.

[AlanF]

34 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

All that you do is simply quote or borrow from others.

That's the point, you moron!

34 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

Your essay is just a rehash of COJ.'s  thesis with nothing new

Actually it's a rehash of current scholarship, just as COJ's writings are. Both COJ and I personally are irrelevant to that large body of competent scholarship.

You, like your Mommy, are quite incapable of arguing against some scholarly stance without ridiculous ad hominems. You've learned well.

And we all know how passionately you lie about virtually everything.

34 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

and you still have not answered my question. Have you?

See above.

[AlanF]

4 hours ago, scholar JW said:

JW Insider

So what. it was the Chronology of the times and Bible Chronology was not then yet fully developed and he did not compute the 70 years.

Point being: if the uninspired J. A. Brown got it right, then the "providentially" inspired Bowen/Barbour/Russell people ought to have gotten it right.

The fact that they got it wrong proves that "providence" had nothing to do with their mistakes. And Russell, having claimed to speak for God (he was God's mouthpiece, he said), proved himself a false prophet not only by making false predictions in God's name, but by proclaiming false teachings in God's name, including his claim to speak for God.

[scholar JW]

Alan de Fool

32 minutes ago, AlanF said:

As for your lie that I cannot give such a "calendation", that's nonsense. I repeat: I'm not playing your games. The date is given in Julian years in almost all sources, of which you're well aware. Conversion from Julian to Gregorian dates is trivially accomplished by various means, the simplest being to find a website that does it. There are dozens. Here: https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1227757509

It is not a lie for I am asking you a simple question, a relevant question that you refuse or are unable to answer yet you pretend to be an expert on the Chronology of Cyrus' 1st year. So give the Julian date if you dare!

35 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Bullshit. See if you can do it in your own words.

Oh yeah. You're too stupid to know how to quote even the Bible, much less summarize this rocket-science material.

Just read the article provided and the explanation is self-evident.

37 minutes ago, AlanF said:

And of course, it's immaterial whether works on Chronology available in Russell's day made errors. The most important for our thread, based on quite understandable historical errors, was that most writers dated the fall of Babylon to 538 BCE rather than 539, and certainly not 536. The 538 date seems to have gone back at least as far as Bishop Ussher and Isaac Newton. I don't know where the 536 date came from, although Russell always claimed it was firmly established

No, for such published works reflect the scholarship of that time. thus, the date for Babylon's Fall was accepted as 538 BCE again reflecting current scholarship of the day.

42 minutes ago, AlanF said:

But in no case I'm aware of did any of these, aside from the demonstrably incompetent Nelson Barbour and those from whom he borrowed the 1914 chronology, neglect the "zero year" consideration.

Many scholars of that time failed to account for the zero year problem so it prevailed in the Chronologies of the period.

44 minutes ago, AlanF said:

An examination of scholarly works available in the latter half of the nineteenth century proves Barbour and Russell's claim that their dates were firmly established is 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.

Those scholars simply  adopted their schemes of Chronology using different pivotal dates for their respective chronologies so your chart simply reflects the accepted Chronologies of the period accessible by Russell and Barbour. Of course, study of Chronology has evolved from Russell's day and we have currently many different chronologies available today.

49 minutes ago, AlanF said:

And of course, as usual you miss the most important point of all: far from being "providential" (which means "according to God's will") Russell's errors were purely human errors. So the Revelation Climax book and other lying publications actually blamed the Watchtower's God Jehovah for the Watchtower Society's chronological errors.

Providence cannot be excluded as a process of revealing things previously hidden now being revealed and taught by God's people today.

 

51 minutes ago, AlanF said:

There's that gibberish English again. Don't they speak English in Australia?

You are so stupid you stumble over  a typo but you have not answered my earlier question.

scholar JW

[scholar JW]

Alan de Fool

41 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Perhaps, but it would be better than being like you -- a pathological liar who falsely claims to stand for God's standards of Truth, Justice and The American Way.

You cannot answer a simple question but hide behind insults. You coward11

42 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Wrong. One only has to read his works and compare them to real history and events to see this

Read his writings and his chronological expertise is well demonstrated unlike you who cannot answer a simple question on Chronology. LOL!!!!!

44 minutes ago, AlanF said:

And every prediction for the events leading up to 1914 was dead wrong. Everything observable failed.

He got the Gentile Times right.

45 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Ah, yes: the fact that current incompetent Watchtower "scholars" continue with Russell's incompetence proves that Russell was a brilliant scholar. LOL!

Scholarship has verified Russell's contribution of this subject.

46 minutes ago, AlanF said:

Wrong. Everything observable that he predicted for that nonsense failed. Everything! A completely invisible "end of Gentile times" is in no way a fulfillment of a prediction. Should I quote Carl Sagan on that again?

He got the Gentile Times right unlike that idiot , your mate Sagan

47 minutes ago, AlanF said:

See above. And of course, your game is simple-mindedly transparent. All you're doing is trying to create irrelevant side issues in your silly attempt to sidetrack the theme of this thread.

Obfuscation at its finest. You cowardly avoid a simple question which your refusal proves your incompetence.

scholar JW