Uncovering Discrepancies in Secular History

[BTK59]

11 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

That question is meaningless.

First, it is the conventional approach, the same approach used by 100% of all the current authors and authorities you have ever quoted. Even Furuli and the Watchtower and the transgendered Messiah have used this approach. It's the very reason Rolf Furuli himself tried so hard to move the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar from 568 to 588. Otherwise, Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year would be 586. have used, on the topic that you have ever quoted have used.

Your opinion carries no significance either. Feel free to have your own opinions, but please don’t impose your irrational views on the public.

12 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Not really. Math works pretty much the same whether you are a Muslim, a Buddhist, Jewish, Moon-worshiper, or atheist.

Mathematics is indispensable when utilized correctly. It's not meant to distort the way non-Chritians or any other religious members would do.

16 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I don't understand why you think this is an argument. If my own 37th year can be proven to be 1957+37=1994, then that alone proves that my 19th year was 1957+19=1976. Whether I had gone to battle in Viet Nam in 1976, or gone to Bethel in Brooklyn in 1976, the math would still work out.  

A precise way to establish the association between battles and 588/7 BC is by employing accurate mathematical methods. By applying the 19/8-year cycle properly in our calculations, we can also determine that it leads to the year 607/6 BC. Time-lapse moves seamlessly from the start to the finish, rather than insisting that people accept it being presented in reverse.

You only want to see 568 BC, which is meaningless. In the past, there were individuals who not only observed omens, but also sought to understand the workings of celestial bodies over time. Why was it visible in the west for 10 months if it appeared in the east for only two months? Those calculations were purely celestial, unrelated to any earthly events.

[Pudgy]

In "The Caine Mutiny," the strawberries and the key are pivotal symbols. The strawberries represent Captain Queeg's obsession with small details and his descent into irrational behavior.

The key symbolizes authority and control, with the crew's decision to take it from Queeg marking a turning point in their perception of his leadership.

This comes to mind here in these discussions, as agenda driven irrationality descends deeper and deeper into intractable madness.

By counting scoops of strawberries Capt. Queeg “proved” there was a second key, even though there was not.

Obsessions to prove yourself right before others, when elementary math proves  it’s impossible, is where madness resides.

Commonly referred to as a self deceiving fraud, or “bat-crap crazy”.

To misquote Carl Childers, “… some calls it freakin’ physco, ah calls it bat-crap crazy, mmm hmm.”.

a…. alright den….

 

[George88]

I agree with you pudgy, your kind of people are nuts, lol! I won't use your language though. I understand that disfellowshiped individuals and you kinds of people may use profane or abusive language as a form of expression. However, others need to be mindful not to succumb to the pitfalls of Satan, as some people here have done.

[Pudgy]

I notice when you have ZERO legitimate rebuttal you agree with me.

You do not have the slightest idea of the metaphors I use.

Not a clue. Not a freakin’ clue!

That’s like laughing at a joke you don’t get, so as to try not to appear stupid.

[Pudgy]

Howse that workin’ out for you?

[Pudgy]

…. some peoples calls him Karl Childers … Ah calls him Carl Childers ..

….. uumm hhumm.

 

[JW Insider]

On 3/11/2024 at 3:59 PM, BTK59 said:

Not at all. Remember By retracing your steps, you will arrive at the epic "Eclipse War" that occurred in 589/8 BC. 

I believe I have now commented enough on the first post of this topic.

Moving on to this second post of this topic I am first responding to the claim that there was an "eclipse war" that occurred in 589/8. This is false. There never was one. You might be referring to the Eclipse War or "Battle of the Eclipse" on May 28, 585 BC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Eclipse

If one reads the description by Herodotus of the event as a solar eclipse, then based on modern astronomical calculations it can be identified with the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BC (known as Eclipse of Thales), hence yielding the exact date of the battle.

It is completely unrelated to VAT 4956, of course. It's about a battle between the Lydians and the Medes. Also if Herodotus mistook a report of a predicted lunar eclipse instead of an expected full moon, and only thought it was a predicted solar eclipse, then such a battle could have been September 3, 609 BC or July 4, 587 BC. But there is no possible alternative for an eclipse battle to have been in 589/588. Also, there are no lunar or planetary indications on VAT 4956 that fit 588 BC, or 587 BC, or 609 BC. 

On 3/11/2024 at 3:59 PM, BTK59 said:

I'm happy to make good use of the VAT 4956. It provides substantiated historical facts, rather than mere astronomical conjectures.

Such a statement implies you have never read a translation of VAT 4956. This is a ludicrously false claim about it. 

It's false to say that VAT 4956 provides substantial historical facts, rather than mere astronomical conjectures. It provides almost ZERO historical facts. It is almost exclusively about astronomical events, weather events, and things as mundane as a possible disease-carrying fox that somehow got into to city. "Fox News."

If you could find something remotely related to "history" in it, I'm sure you could point it out.

Also, it contains mostly astronomic observations, not conjectures. A conjecture is something like assuming that it refers to 588 BC instead of 568 even though there are ZERO observations that actually fit that year. Another conjecture is assuming there are at least two copyists errors on the tablet because 2 of the 30 astronomical observations don't fit 568. (They also don't fit 588.)

[JW Insider]

So, on to the third post of this topic, back on page 1.

On 3/11/2024 at 4:13 PM, BTK59 said:

LOL! I'll wait for the refutiation on this one

If you look at the context, you will see that you were laughing at the fact that no one would be able to refute the "AI" response you posted from a prompt you gave to AI on Bing.

I, too, was laughing out loud at this one, because what you are asking to haver refuted is exactly what COJ, and all current Babylonian "authorities" already believe. You are acting like AI was so brilliant to give you such an irrefutable answer about the desolation of Judea and destruction of Jerusalem between 605 and 587/586.

Didn't you realize that it was already answering exactly what I believed? Why would I need to refute it?

It's like you are saying, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Me and AI [and COJ] believe THIS about the subject and I bet you can't refute it. Just try to refute it. LOL!"

That's laughable, but only because it's so ludicrously confused. I had planned to respond to more of your posts in this thread especially because I am referenced so many times, but this kind of confusion gives me a good reason not to take you seriously enough to respond.

Just for reference, and in case you decide to delete the embarrassment, I will requote the entire response you got from AI/Bing:

On 3/11/2024 at 4:13 PM, BTK59 said:

Artificial intelligence:

The destruction of Judah is commonly dated to **587/586 BC**, when Nebuchadnezzar II, the king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, besieged and captured Jerusalem. This event led to the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the beginning of the Babylonian captivity¹.
However, there are references to an earlier invasion by Nebuchadnezzar. In **605 BC**, after defeating Pharaoh Neco of Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah, and King Jehoiakim of Judah became subservient to the King of Babylon². This earlier date is sometimes associated with the start of the Babylonian influence over Judah, but it is not the date of the complete destruction of Jerusalem or the temple.
The final siege of Jerusalem, which resulted in the city's fall and the temple's destruction, occurred over a period of about 30 months, culminating in **587/586 BC**¹. This event marked the end of the Kingdom of Judah as an independent state and the start of the Babylonian exile for many of its inhabitants.

Source: Conversation with Bing, 3/10/2024
(1) Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC) - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(587_BC).
(2) King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invades Judah - The Bible Journey. https://www.thebiblejourney.org/biblejourney2/33-judah-after-the-fall-of-israel/king-nebuchadnezzar-of-babylon-invades-judah-/.
(3) Details of 586 BC Babylonian Destruction of Jerusalem Revealed in Fire .... https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/destruction-jerusalem-0018956.

Then you say: 

On 3/11/2024 at 4:13 PM, BTK59 said:

LOL! I'll wait for the refutiation on this one

There is no good refutation for this one. It's exactly what all the evidence shows to be true. If you agree with it, and you think it can't be refuted, then you agree whole-heartedly with COJ, and all the current experts you have been been quoting. 

[JW Insider]

So now on to the fourth post on this topic, still back from page 1:

On 3/13/2024 at 4:05 PM, BTK59 said:

I'm curious to know if all astronomers possessed the same capabilities, or if some simply observed the sky with their naked eye.

Babylonian Eclipse Observations from 750 BC to 1 BC _ Peter J. Huber and Salvo De Meis_2004

I had already written up comments based exactly on this section of this book a few weeks ago under another topic. I agree wholeheartedly with everything they said in the section you quoted. My comments dealt more specifically with the accuracy of the full eclipse timing. For me, just as for Huber/DeMeis it seems they are in favor of the idea that the Babylonian observers used the naked eye, and that this partly accounts for why they often rounded to the nearest 5 degrees.

As you quoted from their book:

Quote

Before about the year -561, i.e. the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, almost all eclipse timings, except the very shortest ones, seem to have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 5º. Afterwards, other integer values are used freely, with only a slight preference for multiples of 5. However, this improvement of recording precision apparently was not accompanied by an improvement of measurement accuracy, and during the entire period under investigation, rounding to the nearest multiple of 5 would have been entirely adequate. Also otherwise, the changes in observational accuracy have remained surprisingly minimal, considering that the observations spread over more than seven centuries. The only noticeable change is that the earlier lunar eclipse time measurements seem to exhibit a mild positive bias, and the later ones a decidedly negative bias (see the end of Section 2.11). . . . They should be compared also to the timing errors of approximately 5 minutes found by Stephenson and Said (1991) for the Arabic observations of eclipse contacts. pp.28-29

The very fact that we can tell their timing errors were 5 degrees or 5 minutes, sometimes above and sometimes below is an excellent indication that we are also able to translate these observations to the correct dates. 

You added: 

On 3/13/2024 at 4:05 PM, BTK59 said:

568 BC doesn't seem to fit the naked eye theory.

Seems to me that this does not follow at all from what you just quoted. Perhaps you intended to make 568 seem less possible than 588 on VAT 4956 with a throw-away statement. But remember that 588 doesn't fit, and 568 does for the particular tablet you have been questioning. And if it doesn't seem to fit the naked eye theory, would 588 have been better somehow on that same count even though it was 20 years earlier? Your quote from the book shows that the accuracy remained almost the same over a period of 7 centuries, with Nebuchadnezzar's time landing closer to the middle of that period.

It has seemed to be almost a recurring theme with you, even back to the days when you used the name Allen Smith. More often than not, you seem to quote something that gives evidence for just the opposite of what claim the material is indicating to you.  

[JW Insider]

On to the fifth post of this topic, also on page 1:

On 3/13/2024 at 7:19 PM, George88 said:

"Jehoiachin (exile) 587 - 26 Apries 588-570." p56

In history, it is recorded that in the same year, Wahibre besieged (attacked) Tyre and Sidon. Therefore, I am confident that highlighting 588 BC on the valuable timepiece, which refers to the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar mentioned in the tablet from 569/8 BC, is accurate. By retracing the events, I can confirm the authenticity of this significant event.

The first line quotes Gerard Gertoux above. But what you added was convoluted. This valuable timepiece highlights 588 BC, and refers to the 37th year mentioned on the tablet from 569/8? 

There is no tablet that highlights 588! Perhaps you can explain that sentence in different words. 

On 3/13/2024 at 7:19 PM, George88 said:

Significantly, King Jehoiachin was released from prison by a Babylonian king who was sympathetic to the Jewish people. This event marked the conclusion of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, although the desolation would continue for another 50-year jubilee cycle. Consequently, it would take the Jewish nation a "score" and a "jubilee" to return home.

According to the Bible, King Jehoiachin wasn't released until the 37th year of his exile in Babylon which started in Nebuchadnezzar's 7th year and since Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 43 years, it would therefore have ended in 581 or 580 under Awel-Marduk. (Or 601 BCE using WTS chronology.) 

You are therefore indicating above that the event of his release by Awel-Marduk marked the "conclusion of the destruction" whatever that means. Another 50 years from there would be 531/530 or 551 BCE using WTS chronology. 70 years (a score and a jubilee) from that event would be 511/510 BCE or 531 using WTS chronology.

None of what you are saying here fits either the standard chronology or WTS chronology. It's closer to some of the more confused attempts to reconstruct the period done in the 1800's before the discovery of so many more dated tablets.

[JW Insider]

On 3/15/2024 at 11:44 AM, BTK59 said:

What are your thoughts on the discrepancy between the rulers Akkad's Puppet King, Kandalanu, and Nabopolassar? 

You didn't ask me, I know, but there is no discrepancy between these two. There are some issues to resolve during the rough transition between the Assyrian kings and the Babylonian kings for dating purposes, but not these two kings. These late Assyrian and early Neo-Babylonian issues have been discussed in many books. Attempts to resolve some of the unknown pieces in the 1800's and early 1900's can now be shown to have been wrong based on further evidence. 

I thought that Joan Oates did one of the best jobs, pretty much starting from scratch with the known evidence, and looking at what theories get ruled out. There are plenty of other good books on it, but I thought this one explained it best.

Assyrian Chronology, 631-612 B.C. Author(s): Joan Oates Source: Iraq, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 135-159 Published by: British Institute for the Study of Iraq Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4199788

[JW Insider]

On 3/15/2024 at 12:10 PM, George88 said:

It really comes down to how you perceive Borger and Frame. There exists a 20-year gap where it is uncertain who held the title of puppet King in Babylon.

I looked over everything I could find from Borger and Frame, and there does not seem to exist any 20 year gap that you speak of. Perhaps you can point me to a specific page in a specific book. I understand the one-year-gap that the Babylonian Chronicles speaks about just before Nabopolassar. I understand that there appears to be a potential overlap or co-rulership during the last elderly years of Ashurbanipal's long reign. Kings that may have potentially used two different titles do not account for any gap near as long as 20 years.

Of course, it's always possible, I just can't find anything about a 20 year gap. 

Also, it wouldn't seem to matter in WTS chronology because that chronology paints itself into a corner such that the only gap that would help would be to find 24 years inside the 4 year reign of Neriglissar. There is no possible gap to discover anywhere else that would help the WTS chronology in the slightest. In fact, if found anywhere else, it would destroy the WTS chronology even further.