The Watchtower's 20-year adjustment to the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology

[JW Insider]

... continued...

Not according to the evidenced chronology, of course, but according to the WT chronology. 

(Jeremiah 52:27-30) . . .Thus Judah went into exile from its land. These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar took into exile: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews.  In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem. In the 23rd year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard took Jews into exile, 745 people. In all, 4,600 people were taken into exile.

If you say the 18th year refers to 607, then the 7th year would be 618 BCE when the greater number were taken into exile.  In fact, as mentioned before, this number was two-thirds of the entire number of exiles, and the number exiled in the 18th year ("607") was only about one-sixth of the total number of exiles. 

Daniel said he was among a group of Judean exiles in an earlier group than "607." Jeremiah spoke of the exiles 10 years before "607." And Ezekiel goes so far as to use a new era of dating where each year was one of the "YEARS of OUR EXILE."  

(Ezekiel 33:21) . . .At length in the 12th year, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month of our exile, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said: “The city has been struck down!”

So it really makes no sense to start claiming that something called "The Exile" (as if there were only one) MUST have started ONLY in the year of the smallest number of exiles, what you call 607. It also flies in the face of Ezekiel's use of the term "in the 12th year of our Exile" to refer to a time starting 10 years before "the Exile" that you are arguing for.

Why do you need to start "the Exile" a decade LATER than Ezekiel starts "the Exile"? 

[JW Insider]

4 hours ago, scholar JW said:

I am talking about the dates 586 or 587 BCE for the Fall of Jerusalem which the Bible states happened in the 18/19th year of Neb. That is what is contentious! These two regnal years of Neb are irrelevant unless are tied to an event in biblical history such as the Fall of Babylon and the Fall of Jerusalem.

Let's break that down: You say 586 or 587 are being given for an event in Biblical history called the Fall of Jerusalem. Then you say these two regnal years of Nebuchadnezzar are irrelevant unless they are tied to an event in Biblical history such as the Fall of Jerusalem. 

Yeah!! I graciously accept your apology!! It took a while to convince you. Thank you for explicitly admitting that the years 586 or 587 are relevant! 

[Pudgy]

Relevant to 1914?

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

Yeah!! I graciously accept your apology!! It took a while to convince you. Thank you for explicitly admitting that the years 586 or 587 are relevant! 

The only relevance applicable to these two proposed dates 586 BCE and 587 BCE for that event in Bible history- the Fall of Jerusalem is that it highlights the contention within scholarship as to which is the precise date for the Fall.

scholar JW

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

So it really makes no sense to start claiming that something called "The Exile" (as if there were only one) MUST have started ONLY in the year of the smallest number of exiles, what you call 607. It also flies in the face of Ezekiel's use of the term "in the 12th year of our Exile" to refer to a time starting 10 years before "the Exile" that you are arguing for.

Why do you need to start "the Exile" a decade LATER than Ezekiel starts "the Exile"? 

No problem as the Exile as to its nature and chronology are clearly defined as a fixed period of 70 years and consisted of two other elements namely a period of servitude to Babylon and a period of desolation of the Land of Judah which are characteristic of a 'exile' which of course would include a deportation of the remaining inhabitants. Such three elements are the Exile and only went into effect at the time of the Fall of Jerusalem. Ezekiel along Daniel and others had already been deported some ten years earlier into Exile in Babylon thus it became their or 'our exile.

scholar JW

[JW Insider]

33 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

Relevant to 1914?

I'm kidding about those dates being relevant to @scholar JW. These dates (587 and 586) have ALL the best evidence behind them for the Fall of Jerusalem, and 607 has absolutely NONE, imo. But no one who has invested so many years at the altar of 607 and its idolized celebrated scholars will very easily see the relevance of 587/6, because it's NOT relevant to 1914. But 607 is relevant to 1914. 587/586 is actually the good guy, but it's considered to be the feared, evil "nemesis" god that threatens to make the 607 idol fall on its fishy face, relegated to the "piles" of a Dagon day gone by. 

[scholar JW]

Screcko Sostar

2 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

I remain to enjoy this academic discussion. 

Please do and recognize that such a discussion is only made possible by those 'celebrated' WT scholars!

scholar JW

 

[JW Insider]

12 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

it highlights the contention within scholarship as to which is the precise date for the Fall.

You are funny. Did you really think that, in the Bible, Jehovah associates the fall of Jerusalem with both the 18th year and the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar in order to create contention among scholars who won't then be able to figure out the precise year? Or perhaps so that your own idolized scholars will stand out as greater and somehow get the upper hand when they choose neither date, but pick one that's only 20 years off? 

[JW Insider]

16 minutes ago, scholar JW said:

which of course would include a deportation of the remaining inhabitants.

Then why does Jeremiah say that that the deportation of the remaining inhabitants happened 5 years AFTER the Fall of Jerusalem? And why was it only such a small number who were actually exiled according to Jeremiah: 4,600 total out of perhaps hundreds of thousands?

[JW Insider]

6 hours ago, scholar JW said:

The date 537 BCE is well attested than the problematic 19th or 18th year of Neb.

I'm sure you know that the BCE date 537 for Cyrus 2nd year is almost as well attested as Nebuchadnezzar's 19th or 18th.

But it's not attested to at all as the end of a 70-year period of exile. Ezra says the Jews were released by a decree in the first year of Cyrus. The Insight book admits that Bible writers sometimes used a non-accession year method, so that this could have referred to the idea that Cyrus immediately decreed the Jews to be free in 539. That's the actual year that you agree is the year Cyrus conquered Babylon, right?

So according to the Bible it could be 539 when the Jews were decreed to be free. And therefore when they got back to their homeland in the 7th month of 538, not 537.

(Ezra 3:1) . . .When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites were in their cities. . .

Does this supposed contention between 538 and 537 perhaps mean that you should ignore both dates and say it was really in 557? Hmmm. That's what you do with the supposed contention for Nebuchadnezzar's reign.

In fact that idea of 539 for the decree and 538 for getting back home is a much better Biblical fit to what Chronicles says:

(2 Chronicles 36:20, 21) . . .He carried off captive to Babylon those who escaped the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia began to reign, to fulfill Jehovah’s word spoken by Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.

It's pretty obvious that the kingdom of Persia began to reign in 539 BCE not 537 BCE. The Bible says nothing about the 70 years having to wait until they got all the way back to their homeland anyway. And we know that many of them never went home at all, or waited for many more years. 

Of course, 538 instead of your "celebrated" date makes the most sense here even if Ezra didn't say it. Unless you think ALL the Jews were lazy and didn't really want to get back home when they were freed until nearly 24 months after Cyrus conquered Babylon. 

it's pretty obvious that the Bible clearly states it was Cyrus 1st year, which you agree is 538, but another year is sacrificed to the altar of 607 so it had to be changed from the most logical agreed upon date 538, to 537. It really tells me that there is no respect for the Bible's dates. For the "idolized" Watchtower scholars they are satisfied with just a set of arbitrary dates chosen on both ends of the redefined 70 years, so that 1914 will still works.

6 hours ago, scholar JW said:

simply using a sound and solid date that can serve as an anchor point for OT Chronology thus one can then reckon backwards and forwards to construct a valid scheme of Bible Chronology.

 And yet it's not used as an anchor point going backwards because the same data and evidence that made 539 a so-called anchor date is thrown out the window immediately so that a 20 year gap is theorized to be in their somewhere, else a special interpretation for 1914 won't work. And then the same thing happens going forward hardly 100 years later, and the WTS needs to add 10 years to the evidenced chronology for another WTS interpretation to work: 

*** it-1 p. 182 Artaxerxes ***
Artaxerxes Longimanus, the son of Xerxes I, is the king referred to at Ezra 7:1-28 and Nehemiah 2:1-18; 13:6. Whereas most reference works give his accession year as 465 B.C.E., there is sound reason for placing it in 475 B.C.E.

Also, you continue to posit that the idea of two Biblically conflicting dates produces contentiousness among scholars, and therefore you are willing to dismiss both candidates. Yet the Watchtower publications figured out the reason for the difference between 18th and 19th years in the Bible accounts. You still think that you need to be so concerned with secular issues when it seems the Bible is actually clear after all? That solution, unless you disagree with it, will turn your so-called problematic secular dates back into Bible dates, courtesy of your own idolized scholars.

*** it-2 p. 481 Nebuchadnezzar ***
on Tammuz (June-July) 9 in the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign (Nebuchadnezzar’s 19th year if counting from his accession year or his 18th regnal year), a breach was made in Jerusalem’s wall. 

Same explanation works here:

*** w69 2/1 p. 88 Babylonian Chronology—How Reliable? ***
The Bible record is quite detailed in its account of the first punitive expedition against the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar (or Nebuchadrezzar) in his seventh regnal year (or eighth year from his accession to the throne). (Jer. 52:28; 2 Ki. 24:12) 
 

[Srecko Sostar]

5 hours ago, scholar JW said:

JW Insider

No problem as the Exile as to its nature and chronology are clearly defined as a fixed period of 70 years and consisted of two other elements namely a period of servitude to Babylon and a period of desolation of the Land of Judah which are characteristic of a 'exile' which of course would include a deportation of the remaining inhabitants. Such three elements are the Exile and only went into effect at the time of the Fall of Jerusalem. Ezekiel along Daniel and others had already been deported some ten years earlier into Exile in Babylon thus it became their or 'our exile.

scholar JW

Don't mind me not participating in the discussion about dates and events. There is a lot of math, comparing and memorizing, and reading a lot of books. I don't have that capacity, and I don't have enough persistence.

Should we deal with the figure of "70 years" as an important factor? Not really, as far as I can see. Because there were several "exiles" for many nations and individuals, not just some. And they all started and ended at different times.

Another thing that is troubling in general when we want to rely on statements in the Bible is this. God himself declared that his covenant with the Jews and his Law and some other things will last forever (not 70 or 700,000 years, but forever).
What is visible today of that "eternity"? Something still persists/continues, but how and in what way? Some claim that "that eternity" no longer lasts.

I conclude that relying on the "70 years" benchmark is unreliable.

[George88]

4 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Should we deal with the figure of "70 years" as an important factor?

Those who ignore the facts would be ignorant, while those who agree with such ignorance would be foolish. However, you are absolutely right - expertise on the subject is necessary, rather than relying on non-academic opinions that have been presented thus far.

I'll give you an example. There is a foolish debate among people regarding the use of the date 618 BC.

Just don't use your ignorance to think my words are "ai" generated nor my example as you, JWI, and Pudgy falsely claim.

Could it be possible that scribes based the calculation of King Mattanyahu's reign on his birthdate around 618 BC? Instead of dismissing what the Watchtower indicates, why not question the flaws in secular history and its claim to absolute accuracy?

King Josiah of Judah_ The Lost Messiah of Israel -- Marvin A. Sweeney -- 2001

"The superscription of the book in Jeremiah 1:1–3 places the beginning of Jeremiah’s career in the thirteenth year of King Josiah’s reign (627), and traces it through the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah until the exile of Jerusalem (587),“ page 208

Interestingly, Sweeney mentions an "exile" for both kings in 587 BC not the destruction of Jerusalem. 
"Such a concern points to the year 605 as a focal point (Pivotal Point added) for the prophet’s message: 605 was the year that Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptians at Carchemesh and took control of Judah. It was at this point that the Babylonians emerged as a threat to Judah and Judah was relegated to vassal status." p 307

However, this observation has a minor detail missing from the story.