ComfortMyPeople

This matches what the Babylonian Chronicles have said about Nebuchadnezzar tramping about in Hatti-land very early in his reign, and even near the end of his father Nabopolassar's reign. Some have wanted to say that Hatti-land included Palestine, but limiting it to Syria has always proved a better match. A parallel trip to Palestine/Judea at that same time is only a plausible assumption, and it is based partly on dates given in Daniel, which some have considered a reference to the first of FOUR Judean deportations. Historians only focus on the two deportations acknowledged by Babylonian sources.
Anyway, from what I have read, the Neirab archive is related to a Syrian settlement in Babylon. This new settlement reflected the old Syrian settlement which had been a center to the worship of the moon, "the god of Neirab."
I notice you avoided showing your source again. It was Exile and Return: The Babylonian Context edited by Jonathan Stökl, Caroline Waerzeggers. p.63.
Here, again without referencing your sources, you jump in this very next sentence to a completely different book and context: [Teach Yourself] Complete Babylonian: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding ... by Martin Worthington.
Without saying why, you have highlighted the following by underlining it.
I love this stuff. It's pretty interesting to be able to watch language change over time. You see it in Hebrew, with the development of certain exceptions to the usual suffixes for masculine (-im) and feminine (-ot) noun plurals. And it's so interesting that the same types of changes in a language (morphology) will have parallels in many languages. (e.g., majuscule vowels in both Korean and Hebrew texts.) Although mimation and nunation technically refer to M and N case suffixes being added in Akkadian, similar things happen in Hebrew and Arabic too. You can look at old texts in Hebrew like the Dead Sea Scrolls and see the same texts from just a few hundred years later with contractions and abbreviations that reflect how language was spoken, and influences from other languages that had influenced speech. (Old English, for example, once had different case and gender endings for nouns and the accompanying adjectives. But these have been completely dropped, too.)
Wikipedia says:
In the later stages of Akkadian the mimation (word-final -m) - along with nunation (dual final "-n") - that occurs at the end of most case endings has disappeared, except in the locative. Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapse to -u and in Neo-Babylonian most word-final short vowels are dropped. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings (although often sporadically and incorrectly). As the most important contact language throughout this period was Aramaic, which itself lacks case distinctions, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon.
The practice of Neo-Babylonians trying to use their own archaic language in a contemporary inscription to give it a more authoritative, religious or legalistic feel, sounds similar to the use of "King James" style language 400 years later. However, it's also possible that some of these might be explained by the fact that the difference in the interchange of use of the NI sign with the NIM sign, for example, could be based on various regional dialects which changed in both directions over time. It's also possible that Martin Worthington has made a mistake in picking this particular example, because masculine plurals kept their original case endings in both archaic Babylonian AND Neo-Babylonian.
Of course, what you highlighted has nothing to do with the 1914 doctrine, nor does it answer the question raised about Wiseman and Grayson, which I didn't expect you to answer.
It looks like you are diverting to a subject that Allen Smith argued with Ann Omaly several years ago. Something about how later historians spoke of a direct route over the desert ("a way of thirst"), and I I always wondered whether this would really have been any quicker than the long way around taking the "Crescent" route by the rivers. But I still haven't changed my mind on this. You don't know how long that one particular trip took, and neither do I. For me it makes no difference, because the only date that is used for the destruction of Jerusalem is called, in the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year or his 19th year (no doubt based on the two different counting systems which we have often discussed.) A difference of a few weeks travel time way back near or before the official start of Nebuchadnezzar's reign is meaningless in the overall picture.

No, not at all. The claims I made so far have been shown to be correct, not false.
Most everything the Watchtower teaches agrees with the Bible, therefore there is no conflict. I agree with almost every explanation, except for some problems with secondary interpretations of prophecy. The original, primary interpretations (fulfillments) are nearly always correct, in my opinion, but the Watchtower has had the most problems with trying to push for a secondary interpretation (a "larger" fulfillment) that is usually applied to Bible Students or Witnesses in more modern times, and these are ones we've most often had to drop or modify. And of course, we rely too much on secular chronology for the major prophecy about 1914. And then the WT finds that it must cherry pick which parts of the secular chronology it needs, and which parts to reject.
However, if the WT could show evidence that these explanations are correct and Biblical, I'd go back to those explanations immediately.
The Watchtower does dismiss structured historical facts. And it's a shame because this is done for the purpose of creating a doctrine that appears to defy the counsel of Jesus and Paul about chronology. From what I can tell, if the Watchtower accepted structured historical facts about Neo-Babylonian archaeology, they could use these facts to help show how well it aligns with the Bible's record, the accuracy of Bible prophecy in Jeremiah, Daniel, and Zechariah, for example. And it would show that the Bible has more historical credibility than many unbelievers will give it credit for. But as persons who walk by faith, we personally shouldn't need to concern ourselves too much with either support or possible discrepancies with the secular record, because we shouldn't need to rely on the secular record to interpret prophecy. Yet the Watchtower relies on the secular record to come up with the 1914 date, doesn't it?
Paul said that "regarding chronology, brothers, we need nothing to be written to us."
(1 Thessalonians 5:1, 2) . . .Now as for the times and the seasons, brothers, you need nothing to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know very well that Jehovah’s day is coming exactly as a thief in the night.
Why is Carl Olof Jonsson so important to you? It doesn't matter in the least if this one person is right or wrong or intellectual or a scholar. The evidence against the Watchtower tradition on 1914 does not come from one man, it can come from any of the thousands of persons who have seen the overall picture from tens of thousands of Neo-Babylonian tablets. Every one of those dated tablets adds to our picture in support of the facts. Every one of them therefore detracts from the 1914 tradition.
Carl Olof Jonsson is not my friend, and he never was. When I first knew about the "hot potato" manuscript at Bethel, I thought I might even be given an assignment to help counter it. I wasn't. But COJ himself was not my friend, except in the sense that he was, at the time, one of our Christian brothers. But I never spoke with him. Also, no one needs his research. You don't even need Wiseman and Grayson any more to decipher the chronicles. I think that there are now hundreds or even thousands of researchers and scholars who could do an adequate job. The fact that nearly all of them agree completely with COJ doesn't mean that COJ is important to this discussion. It just means that COJ discussed the same relevant evidence about the Neo-Babylonian chronology, just like all the others. And I'm sure you know that no one has found any evidence supporting the Watchtower's view of 607 yet. And every new piece of evidence continues to support the previous evidence and shows how foolish the Watchtower has been for trying to hang onto this 1914 tradition so long. And you can also see from various articles that the Watchtower has gone so far as to misrepresent the evidence instead of celebrating how this evidence supports the Bible.
So far, EVERY piece of Babylonian archaeological evidence HURTS 1914. None of it helps 1914. And there are literally TENS of THOUSANDS of relevant tablets. And I'm sure you know that the Watchtower Society is well aware of this, too.
In another post, I'll look into the references your are quoting from. For now I notice that you have not addressed my request about pointing out which corrections of Wiseman and Grayson you were referring to. And more importantly, whether those corrections have had any effect on the dating of Nebuchadnezzar's 18th or 19th year.
Also, I'm not sure why you bring up Nebuchadnezzar's speed between Babylon and Hatti-land. I don't care how long it took him, and don't see why anyone should care. Whatever year the Babylonians thought best to call his regnal year and his first year or his 18th or 19th year is fine with me. Let's say he didn't get back in time for the new year after his father died, or some similar quirk of fate. If he had become so important that they shaved off a year from his father's reign to start counting his own, then what difference does this make in the long run. Even if such a situation could potentially shift a date by a year, we already know which year was his 19th or 37th, just as well as we know Cyrus' 1st or 8th. So why fret over a difference of a couple weeks based on the speed of his horses or his traveling entourage?
Anyway, I said I'd wait and do this later, so I'll stop for now.

There is an expression in math:
“Divergent series are the work of the devil.”
Maybe the same is true of chronology.

I guess I should respond to this point too, since you added "Some scholars have updated their chronology . . . Why haven't you updated yours?"
First of all I don't care about Wiseman and Grayson or your COJ references. I believe Jesus was right when he said chronology is in the jurisdiction of the Father, and that it does not belong to us to get to know the times and the seasons. Paul said that as for the times and seasons brothers you need nothing to be written to you.
So while I don't have any personal interest in even trying to see how a secular chronology might match the Bible, I am only concerned that we aren't getting overly concerned about certain specious claims that turn out to be untrue, and have already resulted in expectation postponed that makes the heart sick. One of our responsibilities as Christians is to encourage one another and build one another up. If false stories and genealogies are likely to end up disturbing our brothers in the long run, our obligation is to make sure of all things so that we can hold fast to what is fine.
To that end I've read some of Wiseman and Grayson and Delitzsch, etc. I've checked out several of the major books they've produced, especially to read parts on the Neo-Babylonian period. The NYPL allowed me to make hundreds of pages of photocopies of some of these books that are only allowed for reference. And, of course, these days it's easy just to take a smartphone snap every relevant page.
But I don't know why you think these particular adjustments are important. You didn't even say for sure which adjustments you were referring to. May I assume you didn't give details because it has absolutely no effect on the date for the destruction of Jerusalem. Most of the adjustments I know of in Wiseman and Grayson are about the Assyrian period: Assurnasurpal, Shalmaneser, etc. There have also been typos in Babylonian tablets, even by trained scribes of the time. And sometimes the typos might have been in an original that was not corrected when copied. And sometimes the scribes made a note when they were making a correction of a previous typo when copying. None of this surprises me.
But even a dozen corrections of the sort I've read about could never override the evidence of hundreds, even many thousands of tablets that give us the entire picture of the Neo-Babylonian period. Even if there were only 7 lines of independent evidence, you could prove that 3 of them were complete frauds, and it would still not overturn the remaining lines of independent evidence. For a long time, the Watchtower publications hinted that Ptolemy was wrong and therefore they can claim anything they want about how to cherry-pick dates for a chronology and reject others. This turned out to be a fantasy, because no one needs Ptolemy at all to understand the overwhelming evidence for the neo-Babylonian chronology.
For evidence of what I am saying, I'll just ask you to share how these supposed adjustments in Grayson and Wiseman would have any effect on the date for Nebuchadnezzar II's 18th and 19th year. If you are are anything like the predecessor accounts you have emulated, I'm sure you won't oblige.

I don't have any problem understanding it, or even seeing its "intellectual" appeal to those who still believe Jerusalem was destroyed around 607 BCE. It's not even difficult to explain, if you are willing to cut a few corners scripturally. The difficulty is not with the doctrine, which I believe is simply wrong, it's with resolving the contradictions between the 1914 tradition and the scriptures.
Yes, that's why I have often referred to this teaching as a long-standing tradition, a lofty, strongly entrenched thing.
(2 Corinthians 10:4, 5) . . .but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. 5 For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. . .
2520 was not an Adventist calculation. I never contended that it was "made" by Miller. Miller might have used terminology that made it appear that he came up with it himself, but I dealt with that kind of egotistical presentation earlier. Here's a site that contains a lot of quotes directly from Miller on the subject:
https://the2520.com/william_miller.htm
"I WILL NOW BRING FORWARD SOME PROPHECIES WHICH REMAIN TO BE FULFILLED, OR WHICH HAVE RECENTLY BEEN ACCOMPLISHED"
The editor of the site above takes that as evidence that Miller got there first:
William Miller was the first person in modern times to have discovered the 2520, below are some of his thoughts on the subject
It's true that Miller was fairly early among those who discussed 2520 from some potential 7 times prophecies. Maybe as early as 1818, about 10 years before the 1828 work of Faber that was quoted in the 1830 periodical you already referenced about Faber. (Your other quote was from Chamberlain around 1860, about the time Barbour was readjusting some of Miller's starting points for the 1260, 1290, 1335, etc.)
But if you read Barbour and Russell closely, you will notice that they make the same mistakes that Miller made, and they highlight the points with the same priorities as Miller and those who communicated with Miller. (For example, notice how closely the priorities of this work match Russell's by Miller's associate, Hiram Edson, as found in a series of articles from the Review and Herald, starting in January 3, 1856. The articles are called the Times of the Gentiles, and it matches several points that Russell uses in his 1876 article contributed to The Bible Examiner (published by George Storrs). The Times of the Gentiles by Hiram Edson 
Although it's not true of the more sophisticated (more scholarly) sources, Miller-related sources use Leviticus 26 as a more important source of the 7 times than Daniel 4, as did Miller and Edson. (And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.) This was also true of Barbour and Russell. Russell also admitted that the even better source for calculating 1914 would be "Israel's doubles" by which he meant the "parallel dispensations" that mapped the same number of years to fleshly Israel as to events for "spiritual" Israel. Hiram Edson used the same scriptures (like Isaiah 40:2) to "double" the 1260 to 2520.
Also, it's not true of the more scholarly sources (like Faber) to make a mistake with the zero year inclusion. Adventist sources that had been based on Miller and Barbour had made this mistake. The sitehttps://the2520.com/william_miller.htm includes this admission:
At the time William Miller wrote the above quotes, he did not understand the transition between B. C. and A. D.  Therefore his dates are off by one year at the beginning or the end of the his understanding of the 2520.  This was because of a simple mathematical error; in math, when we go from a negative number to a positive number zero will count as one position.  In chronological year dating, to go from B.C. to A. D. you have to add one to your total because there is no year zero.
Russell admitted in the Watch Tower that he pretty much just accepted Barbour's chronology lock, stock and barrel, or maybe I should say, "hook, line and sinker."
Russell admits that he was influenced by Adventists, and the influence is obvious. That doesn't mean he was an Adventist. But if you look closely at his doctrines, even more than just Barbour's chronology, he shows much more Adventist's influence than he appears to admit.
 

The Watchtower theory on the 2520 evidently conflicts with the Bible, reason and logic, and also conflicts with the same secular support the Society depends upon for 539 BCE. You didn't even try to show that any calculations were disingenuous. And I'm only showing evidence that the calculations the Watchtower used about the 2520 contained a couple of obvious mistakes. I'm not claiming that Watchtower writers were necessarily disingenuous, even where they sometimes appear to be.
If the calculations I am showing are wrong, please show me where and I will correct them immediately.
You seem confused. The Watchtower does not add 11 years to the 1260 days. The Watchtower adds 11 days, not years. It uses 1260 days+11 days=1271 days, to get from 12/28/1914 to 6/21/1918. The Watch Tower publications never turn them into years, as your own references have done. The Watchtower just keeps it in days, and never uses the supposed "day for a year" principle on the 1260 days.
That sentence appears too convoluted. I'm guessing it's another attempt to insult something you can't defend, but you are not clear about what that is.
You used one example that had nothing to do with the seven times of Daniel 4. Later in the post you used an example from Walter Chamberlain that does reference Daniel 4, and does associate the 2520 with the Gentile Times, similar to Faber but with adjustments. You might even go on to J.A.Brown and a few others who worked with a 2520 prophecy ending not far from 1914. (Although J. A. Brown held the Gentile Times to 1260 years, not 2520).
But you might already know that Chamberlain, Campbell, Cuninghame, J.A.Brown, Elliott, Faber, Thomas, Miller, Barbour, and many others were never completely original. They all worked from, and added to, the ideas of persons who came before them. More recently, some scholars have tried to go back over the history of these "historicists" to understand their methods instead of just as defenders of their overall religious viewpoints. This has resulted in the uncovering of a common theme. Even B. W. Schulz noticed it in researching Watch Tower history. What they've noticed is that many of these persons wouldn't give credit to the person(s) from whom they were borrowing and plagiarizing. Persons like N.H.Barbour and E.G.White were even beginning to gain a status of "prophet," or dropping hints that they were the "faithful and wise servant," the channel through which persons needed to receive proper spiritual food.
Miller himself has been noted for a similar method of passing himself off as mostly just a self-taught farmer, yet he borrowed from persons before him without crediting them. B.W.Schulz defends the practice as common in those days. But it was extremely common among would-be Bible prognosticators. There is a well-researched, well-footnoted, 238-page paper on Academia.edu that says the same thing about Miller, that has been said about Barbour, White, and Russell. (https://www.academia.edu/1035050/_A_Feast_of_Reason_The_Roots_of_William_Miller_s_Biblical_Interpretation_and_its_influence_on_the_Seventh-day_Adventist_Church😞
p.205 says:
The view espoused by some Seventh-day Adventists that Miller’s Bible study was conducted in isolation and that his “Rules of Interpretation” were developed completely independently is unsustainable when the historical evidence is examined. Miller’s hermeneutics were in fact, not particularly original, innovative, or new—they bear, for example, a great similarity to the methods used by his contemporary Alexander Campbell.
p. 188 says:
Consequently, unlike Miller, White makes no systematic explanation of her principles of biblical interpretation. In fact, her most complete presentation on the topic is a simple reiteration of Miller’s views—some forty-four years after they were first
p. 105 even implies that Faber, who you quoted earlier, has been indirectly handed down through Miller and White.
White’s phrasing in these passages brings to mind Miller’s statement previously mentioned: .  .In fact, in reference to Miller, White explicitly makes use of such phrasing:. . . While it is unlikely that White read George Stanley Faber’s The Sacred Calendar of Prophecy, her use of these phrases clearly echoed that of Faber and other early historicists, as well as Miller himself.
You go on to quote "Isaiah's Call to England: being an exposition of Isaiah the eighteenth" by Walter CHAMBERLAIN. This work is a little more scholarly in that it mentions the position of Faber, Elliott, Thomas, etc, and you probably recognize more than a few similarities to J.A.Brown, and other earlier works.
Chamberlain's argument is similar to yours. He says (p.348) that these persons before him were wrong in many of the details and exact dates they used, but the very fact that several of them discussed the possibility of using a period of "7 times" as 2520 years, shows that there must be something to it. Therefore he went on to predict his own false alarm for the restoration of Israel within that same range of dates limited to 1864 up to 1914, because "end of Gentile Times" referred to the restoration of the physical nation of Israel in Jerusalem.
And these few examples only indicate that people had trouble making use the actual number that the Bible associated with the "Gentiles Times" and they were so anxious to prove themselves right that they ignored the counsel of Jesus. The evidence that these included examples of persons being blinded by their own egos is clear from some of the things that many of them said about themselves, and how so many didn't have the humility to credit their sources, but wanted credit for themselves.
Edited to add: If anyone cares to read the work (Anatolia) by Thomas that Chamberlain referenced, it's here: https://books.google.com/books?id=rCBcAAAAQAAJ  Chamberlain says " But I entertain no doubt that they can, and was agreeably surprised to find that this very thing has been done by an American author, named Thomas." I have seen phrases like this so often, that I have come to see them as code for: "This is one of the places I got the idea from, but even though he already wrote it first, I want people to think I found this on my own, and that this other person just happened to agree with me by coincidence. Even if it was many years before me."
 
 

But you did NOT show any others concurring with the 2520 prophecy. "The 2520 prophecy" according to the Watchtower, is the tree dream of Daniel 4, where the non-Jewish, wicked king Nebuchadnezzar represents the Jewish Kingdom at Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar is toppled, but banded and protected to rise again, so that his return to power represents Jesus' rise to power in 1914 as King of Jewish kingdom.
And it was not just the erred timing.
What you quoted and spoke of as "overwhelming proof" was about a man in 1830 who didn't even see these seven times as related to anything in Daniel 4. It had nothing to do with the 7 time periods of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity. He never hinted that this insanity pictured the Messianic Kingdom.*
But here's where you pulled another "Allen Smith." Allen Smith, you might remember, was well known on this forum for finding supposed evidence for something and not realizing that his evidence actually showed just the OPPOSITE of what he wanted to prove.
Here's how you did that here.
What you apparently hadn't realized is that the article you quoted from shows why Mr. Faber was WRONG. Not only wrong, but wrong to start with Nebuchadnezzar. The article shows why the more popular and preferable period of 2,520 years needs to start, NOT WITH NEBUCHADNEZZAR, but with the Assyrian assault on Israel in 728 BC, as already presented by Cuninghame who, by this logic, would have mapped two 1260 year periods as follows:
I. B.C. 728. Commencement of the subjugation of Israel and Judah by the Assyrians snd Babylonians.
II. A. D. 533. Decree of Justinian, establishing the Papal Supremacy, and the worship of the Virgin Mary.
III. A.D. 1792. Commencement of the Judgments on the Papacy, in the French Revolution.
Periods II to III above, were within 6 or 7 years of the same endpoints that Miller, Barbour and Russell accepted for the 1260-year period. Russell ran it from AD 539 to AD 1799. (sometimes AD 538 to 1798).
So what you called indisputable was disputed by your own reference. As you might recall, this is why I suspected that Allen Smith would rarely tell where he got his references from, because it so often led to someone reading that reference and seeing how it often demolished his supposed "indisputable" and "overwhelming" evidence. And Allen's common "defense" was to claim that persons were only using "word play" to prove him wrong.

That's true, if it can be proven.
But the Watchtower says that these two instances of 1260 refer to the same events, both the 1260 in Daniel and the 1260 in Revelation. As I said they go from about December 28, 1914 to about June 21, 1918. So both of them equal about 1,271 days. Nothing about years. And they overlap perfectly, so they are not back to back like the evidence you gave from Faber's failed prediction.
You accept the Watchtower's interpretation of 1914, right? So, why don't you accept the Watchtower's interpretation of the 1260 days? Is it because you believe that a different interpretation from the Watchtower has been proved overwhelmingly?
I've explained that my reasons are Biblical. I'm not comfortable with traditions that conflict with scripture. But it appears you prefer overwhelming proof from someone who was clearly wrong, and had no scriptural foundation for his belief. I'll summarize your overwhelming proof that you quoted from 1830:
The Bible indicates that the Gentile Times are 1,260 days in Revelation 11. But if we turn those days into years, we can't find anything important that started at some point in the past and ended 1,260 years later close to our own generation. But if we multiply that number by 2 we find we could get from an event in Nebuchadnezzar's lifetime to 1864. Now we can even make an assumption about something that might have happened at the midpoint of those two periods of 1260 years. Therefore, the Gentile Times will end in 1864. I think the only thing that your Faber evidence got right by 1830 was the fact that he understood the correct way to handle the 0 year problem. 100 years later the Watchtower still hadn't resolved that particular mistake, but they did finally get the zero year right in 1943/4.

Not that the majority are always right anyway, but I think that hardly any Bible scholars understand the "2520 concept" to be scriptural. I just looked up 10 online commentaries on Daniel 4 and NONE of them considered the number 2520. The number 2520 is not found in the Bible. Extrapolating 2520 days from 7 times is already a stretch, and turning those days to solar years is another stretch. Even this word iddan (time) that Daniel uses, just means a time period, which CAN be a year, but not always specifically a year. In fact, how long is this period in Dan 7:12? (below)
These verses represent the majority of the uses of iddan in Daniel outside Daniel 4, itself:
(Daniel 2:8, 9) . . .The king replied: “I am well-aware that you are trying to gain time [the time, iddan], for you realize what my final word is. 9 If you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one penalty for all of you. But you have agreed to tell me something false and deceitful until the situation [the time, iddan] changes. So tell me the dream, and I will know that you can explain its interpretation.”
(Daniel 2:20, 21) . . .“Let the name of God be praised for all eternity, For wisdom and mightiness are his alone. 21 He changes times [the times, iddan] and seasons, Removes kings and sets up kings,. . .
(Daniel 3:15) Now when [at the time, iddan] you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the zither, the triangular harp, the stringed instrument, the bagpipe, and all the other musical instruments, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image that I have made, fine.. . .
(Daniel 7:12) But as for the rest of the beasts, their rulerships were taken away, and their lives were prolonged for a time [time, iddan] and a season.
At least I can inconsequentially agree with you there.
Your quote from "The Christian Guardian" (February 1830) reports on Mr. Faber's interpretation of prophecy, and reminds me of what we spoke of earlier on these topics: that people will always look for a time period long enough to reach their own day. In the 1200's, people could easily reach their own day with a 1260 year period. In the 1400's one could always take a 1335 year period and tack it on to some event in Jesus' life. But when the 1800's rolled around, there were no 1800 year periods. They could start looking for events 2300 years earlier and even more, but that ended up nowhere. During these years Miller, among others, was forced to use a 2520 year period, never found in the Bible. So in the 1830's Miller had to use conjecture to attach a 2520 year period to attach to some event about Babylon from the book of Daniel.
The full context of your quote is here. https://books.google.com/books?id=Rg8EAAAAQAAJ  (p.41,42)  As you partly indicate, the person behind your 1830 quote above did something quite similar, doubling the 1260 year periods, for no other reason other than he thought that 3.5 seemed like it needed to be doubled since it was half of 7. Then he attaches that 2520 to a Daniel reference, in this case Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold -- and he used his birth year, assumed to be about 657 BC. This was a means of reaching his own modern times, and therefore was able to falsely predict 1864 as the end of the gentile times.
But I don't know how impressed we should be that a person was able to make another false prediction for his own generation. Here's what the Watchtower said about such false alarms:
*** w53 11/1 p. 647 Christ’s Second Presence No False Alarm ***
Following Augustine’s time . . .  all were misinterpreted as “signs” foretelling the imminent return of Christ. Joachin of Floris determined that the 1,260 days mentioned in Revelation 12:6 could turn out to be the year A.D. 1260 when Christ would return. Militz of Kromeriz, a forerunner of John Huss, looked for the coming of Christ between the years 1365 and 1367. Wycliffe pointed to the power of the papacy and emphasized that the time of the return was at hand. John Napier predicted the coming end of evil and the return of Christ between the years 1688 and 1700. William Whiston first selected 1715, then 1734, and later 1866 as the date for the inauguration of the millennium.
In the early part of the nineteenth century Christoph Hoffman hurried from Germany to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple in preparation for Christ’s early return. William Miller predicted that Christ would make his appearance during the year 1843, but later postponed the day to October 22, 1844. When these speculations did not materialize, religious sects became a laughingstock, great divisions took place among them, the doctrine was scoffed at, the people who taught it were jeered, and as a whole the idea was pooh-poohed in religious and nonreligious circles alike. All, without exception, were false alarms.
It looks like God didn't make it known, except to make it known that the attempt is a waste of time, false stories leading to nothing. These mistakes are just examples of humans "flailing" because men's egos make them forget what Jesus said about the times and seasons being only in the Father's jurisdiction. Not even angels could figure out the times and seasons, but this didn't stop men from treading there.
If God had provided the evidence, surely these men including Russell and Barbour and Miller and Faber and Rutherford would have been able to predict something correct with that evidence. 100 percent of Russell's predictions for 1914 turned out to be false.
The evidence you provided here was that the first period of 1260 years ended in AD 604., in the time of Pope Gregory the Great, and the spread of Buddhism, etc., in the medieval period. The second period of 1260 was also to have started around this time. The Watchtower Society rejects both of these 1260's, too. For the WTS the 1260 periods from Daniel and Revelation are not even years, they are literal days starting just about 3 days after Christmas in 1914 and reaching up to the Summer Solstice of 1918.
Good! Something else I can agree with completely.
Very false! Complete nonsense. It is very rare that anyone calculates the Gentile Times with a period of 2520. After all, Revelation indicates that it should be calculated with a period of 42 months, or 1260 days. And nowhere does it say that this period is about 1260 years.
(Luke 21:24) . . .into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled.
(Revelation 11:2) . . .to the nations, and they will trample the holy city underfoot for 42 months.
Nowhere do these two references to the Gentile Times refer to a second period of 1260 days, just one. Also, we can see from Jesus said in Luke 21, that these Gentile Times had NOT yet started, so it couldn't have reached back to Nebuchadnezzar anyway.

Maybe. But like I said, I would not be comfortable in an association that got involved in divisive politics and war either, and I think we're right on the idea of a paradise earth. Find me another church with approximately the same teachings and practices JWs have on war, politics, trinity and hell, and a future paradise on earth, and I will visit it with an open mind.
Shunning is a bit like what Jesus said regarding divorce. Even though it came from the perfect law of God, Jesus said it was just a concession that came from Moses out of regard for human hard-heartedness. We all have a lot to learn about love, but this doesn't mean we associate so freely with just anyone, either.
I can find it at almost any meeting, especially visible at the very largest of our conventions, but I also can see it from afar when I happen to drive near a group of Witnesses working a local suburban territory. I can wave and see all smiles, no matter what kind of a day they are having.  I have even run across Witnesses in Paris and other places and can get the same reaction. Yes, up to a point this is at least partly true of many clubs, associations, and even other religious groups. But I know what is driving that smile among Witnesses, and I like it.
Not all congregations have the same level of joy, love, "spirit" etc. Revelation 2 & 3 lets us know that this shouldn't be surprising.
Speaking of southern England, I was using a flight simulator just last night and took off out of London over satellite-imaged terrain to see if I could keep a purely visual course from Gatwick to Paris just by guessing when to adjust slightly over a SSE direction. I just watched the compass, and altitude, and crossed the Channel from Eastbourne to Dieppe to Paris. Did OK, but then I thought of "you" and turned around to see if I could find a house I thought you and your wife were working on, which I had found a year ago from satellite imagery and some Google help. Even at 400 mph it was going to take too long, and when I got closer I switched to a slow prop plane to get a better look at the ground. This time I couldn't find that house from memory, although I'd recognize the area from a few thousand feet.
Now it turns out you are in "southern England" a whole new spot no doubt.from the place I thought you were at. 😉

I would not call it “dumb” if I were you.
The four windows reminds us of the four angels on the four corners of the earth holding tight the four winds of the earth. The carpet covering the dirt of the floor reminds up of the love that is to cover the sins of others. The blue reminds us of heaven where those 4 angels hang out on a nice day.
”You were running well. Who hindered you from keeping on obeying the truth?”
 

Obviously we must be witnesses for Jehovah and Jesus. We would do this out of appreciation for what Jehovah has done for us, especially his purpose and kingdom through Jesus. No matter who we associated with, we would have to watch out for ourselves, and pay attention to our teaching, too. There are many churches, and all of them have problems from traditions and human leadership. Problems of an obsolete chronology are more common in the history of churches than you might think, too.
Perhaps, like TTH said, the "carrot and stick" of a chronology that gets us motivated at first is not a terrible thing, as long as we start serving for the right motivation.
I will still go back to how, if we are honest hearted Christians, we will be attracted to association with groups of Christians or wannabe Christians who try very hard to maintain a brotherhood that is marked by love for one another, who attempt to overcome national, political and racial divides. There are many imperfections and exceptions, but I see this in the brotherhood of Witnesses, much more often than not. Then I would personally only be attracted to a Christian association that speaks out against wars and warmongering. Who will not go to battle against another nation, especially because we have Christian brothers in those other nations too. I happen to think that our teachings on Trinity, Hell, Paradise in a New Earth, etc., are far more important than a chronology tradition we have been stuck with. It's about the same to me as if we were told that all our Kingdom Halls should have 4 windows and a light blue carpet. Maybe we'd be stuck with such a dumb rule for 100 years, but I couldn't care less about it. It would not be important to me, no matter how authoritative the demand to follow that rule sounded. Perhaps someone might even find scriptures that made it seem important, too. I could safely ignore it without feeling conflicted, and I could safely go along with it in the congregation itself, so as not to cause trouble. But then again I might find an outlet where I could safely speak my mind if I thought it went beyond the things written.

I believe that most Witnesses will seem frustrated that they are not able to defend the Watchtower's chronology on either secular grounds or scriptural grounds. I was surprised at this situation, but didn't have to go through a frustration phase, because my expectations were managed when Brother Dan Sydlik said that we ought to just get rid of all this chronology stuff and start from scratch. (He was specifically referring to the 1918/1919/1922 stuff at the time.) From a human perspective, a fleshly perspective, the Watchtower's chronology makes us feel good. As Brother Splane said, it might even send chills up and down our spine. But he admitted that this does not always mean that that such teachings (and I include this chronology) have been right. He indicated in his 2014 talk on types and antitypes that the Watchtower had been steeped in the traditions common to Catholicism, Protestantism, and especially those religions from whom the Bible Students had been recently associated. He spoke of how some of these traditions had been used by other religions to make the Bible appear to be talking about themselves and their own groups. He spoke of how the pyramidology that Russell promoted had become a strongly entrenched thing, with a strong emotional attachment to at least one brother (A. Smith, was the name he used in his example.)
Yet, over time, the Watchtower has dropped almost every date that Russell promoted, literally about a dozen such dates, with the exception of 1914. Since then the Watchtower has dropped another half-dozen prophetic instances that had been tied to the 1914 through 1935 era. Obviously, we had been steeped in long-standing traditions, some of which the Watchtower held for 120 years or more before dropping them. Some, like pyramidology, held for only about half a century, was finally identified as something raised up against the knowledge of God:
(2 Corinthians 10:3-5) . . .For though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage warfare according to what we are in the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. 5 For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, . . .
(Mark 7:7). . .they teach commands of men as doctrines.’ 8 You let go of the commandment of God and cling to the tradition of men.”

(2 Peter 3:11, 12, 17) 11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought YOU to be in holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion, 12 awaiting and keeping close in mind the presence of the day of Jehovah,.  . . .YOU, therefore, beloved ones, having this advance knowledge, be on YOUR guard [i.e., watch] that YOU may not be led away with them by the error of the law-defying people and fall from YOUR own steadfastness.
We don't watch for signs. We watch out for ourselves, we watch out for false teachings, we watch out for our brothers and sisters in case they need help or encouragement -- because the days are wicked, because the Devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking to devour someone.
(Matthew 12:38, 39) 38 Then as an answer to him, some of the scribes and the Pharisees said: “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” 39 In reply he said to them: “A wicked and adulterous generation keeps on seeking a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Joʹnah the prophet.
(Matthew 16:3-6) . . .’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but the signs of the times you cannot interpret. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation keeps seeking a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Joʹnah.” With that he went away, leaving them behind. 5 Now the disciples crossed to the other side and forgot to take bread along. 6 Jesus said to them: “Keep your eyes open and watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
(Matthew 24:42-44) 42 Keep on the watch, therefore, because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 “But know one thing: If the householder had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have kept awake and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 On this account, you too prove yourselves ready, because the Son of man is coming at an hour that you do not think to be it.
We keep on the watch, not to figure out when the Lord is coming, because we'll never know. But if we watch ourselves (our conduct) then we will be ready at all times and the "night" won't overtake us.
Just like when Jesus told the disciples that they would not get an advance sign of the parousia (so that they should not be fooled by wars and earthquakes) he said something very similar to the Pharisees.
(Luke 17:20-24) . . .On being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God was coming, he answered them: “The Kingdom of God is not coming with striking observableness; 21 nor will people say, ‘See here!’ or, ‘There!’ For look! the Kingdom of God is in your midst.” 22 Then he said to the disciples: “Days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, but you will not see it. 23 And people will say to you, ‘See there!’ or, ‘See here!’ Do not go out or chase after them. 24 For just as lightning flashes from one part of heaven to another part of heaven, so the Son of man will be in his day.
The NWT makes it a bit difficult to get the sense of "striking observableness." This is because the Greek is better translated just "observableness." (μετά παρατηρήσεως, in such a manner that it can be watched with the eyes). Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is not coming with things you can observe. In other words, the Kingdom is not coming with visible signs. Other translations get the sense of the Greek a little better like this:
(Revised Standard) he answered them, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; (Luke 17:20)
(NASB) He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; (Luke 17:20)
(New English Translation) so he answered, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, (Luke 17:20)
(New Living Translation) Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. (Luke 17:20)
So when Jesus' disciples also asked him for a sign, he said do not to be misled. No one would be able to say "see here" or "see there" because when the parousia did come it would be be like lightning flashing from one part of the heaven to another. No sign would appear in the heaven when it was too late. No signs could help them prepare for the Son of man in his day.

I believe I have already related the case of my own sister, 5 years younger than me, who was disfellowshipped for leaving a violent husband. He was a ministerial servant when I was at Bethel, and he hit her fairly often. She went to my father (an elder) who gave her the usual counsel about more study, more prayer, more field service. This was frustrating to her because she was already a full time pioneer and praying more than ever.
Her breaking point came when elders, including my father, told her she couldn't go to the hospital because they might ask her how it happened and this would bring reproach on Jehovah's organization. And she couldn't lie. She was told she should hide her bruises and cuts as well as she could. All the while he remained a ministerial servant. I called him from Bethel and threatened to beat him up if he laid a hand on my sister again. I expected a meeting with elders who would want to talk with me after I made a violent threat, but nothing came of it.
Long story short, my sister had her meeting with the elders, and she wanted to separate from her husband. Although this should have been allowed the elders were still adamant that this, too, would bring reproach. She insisted she would ignore their counsel, and that she would even try to get a divorce, so they formed a judicial committee from which my father had to recuse himself. She had not asked for a divorce, but this would be considered both unscriptural and bring additional reproach. In her mind, she should obtain a divorce, even if she wasn't thinking about remarriage. As long as she didn't commit adultery or remarry, (which would be the same as adultery) she thought a divorce was a stronger, more legally binding version of a separation, which would have been allowed (or at least should have been allowed).
Basically, she was disfellowshipped for defying the counsel of the elders, who were "only trying to avoid bringing reproach on the congregation." (To her they accused her of "bringing reproach on the marriage bed.") The circuit overseer agreed with them, and she remained df'd for a while. The circuit overseer also had her husband lose his "status" as a ministerial servant, and I think this lasted more than a year before he was reappointed, and later became an elder.
This was around 1978, when most elders had little experience, and there was a lot of patriarchal dominance in some of the midwest congregations like this one. Also, my sister was not really made aware of any appeal process. Now the information about the appeal is part of the process. Training in such matters is a little different today, and I certainly do not think this would happen again in any congregations I know about.

Whenever we see conflicts and contradictions, there is no need to feel conflicted. We can merely accept that the Bible makes sense a certain way that might be true, and that other explanations might also be true. For example, we can accept a new Watchtower doctrine when it changes, without needing to feel conflicted, just because we are now aware that we have held two different interpretations for the same verse. The Writing Department uses Bible commentaries like Matthew Henry, Barnes Notes, Keil and Delitzsch, etc., and these commentaries offer various possible explanations for difficult verses. But they are rarely dogmatic and each of them may offer various potential explanations. This is how a Bible commentary published about 314 years ago (Matthew Henry) has been able to remain relevant and valuable for these three centuries.
Most Witnesses have found no outlet to safely discuss these conflicts and contradictions between the Bible statements and the Watchtower doctrines. So it is difficult to tell if they actually feel conflicted. But with a less dogmatic attitude toward certain types of conjectural doctrines, there is no reason that they MUST feel conflicted. As you say, perhaps, "conflicted Witnesses" have already made up their minds, not to view prophecy as indicated in scripture by staying alert and keeping on the watch. If so, that's too bad, because it was the whole purpose of Jesus telling us not to be misled by wars and reports of wars, for example. If people think there will be various "signs" that show when the Great Tribulation is near, they will be less likely to truly keep on the watch, and less likely to watch their own conduct and attitude and what sort of persons they ought to be.
This is one of the problems with 1914 playing a prominent role in prophecy. The very role it most likely plays, in my opinion, is that it became a primary instance of proving Jesus right. He said not to be fooled by wars into thinking that the parousia was imminent. I believe that this prophecy has come true, not just in 1914, but in many wars over the past hundreds of years. People hear about wars, earthquakes, pestilence, famine, persecution, imprisonments, etc., and are easily misled into thinking they are seeing a sign of the parousia.
Misinterpretation and miscalculation and a need to rely on SECULAR dates have ALWAYS played a large role in the 1914 doctrine. When the doctrine was originally formulated, Barbour and Russell incorrectly thought Cyrus released the Jews in 536 BCE. This idea had forced the theory that the destruction of Jerusalem had to be moved to 606 BCE, and this left no room to build in much time for the Jews to pack and travel. Barbour had based this 536 date on "Ptolemy's Canon" -- he thought. When Russell published Three Worlds with Barbour, that publication stated that Ptolemy was accepted as accurate by all the scientific and literary world. But when Russell discovered that Ptolemy's Canon actually gives 538 for the first year of Cyrus and 587 for the destruction of Jerusalem using the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar, then Russell began attacking this king list. He attacked Ptolemy too, because he also incorrectly thought that Ptolemy was the originator of Ptolemy's Canon (king list).
Then Russell, apparently not being completely honest, or at least being very sloppy, claimed that "ALL" students of chronology may be said to be agreed that the first year of Cyrus was 536. He had misunderstood that Bible chronologists like Isaac Newton and Bishop Ussher were not using Ptolemy's Canon here, but just using a Bible interpretation to try to fit Jeremiah's 70 years from Nebuchadnezzar's first year to Cyrus 1st year. The Canon had given 604 to 538 for the period, which is really only 66 years, shy by 4 years. But the Bible seemed to put Darius the Mede in there for a year or two before Cyrus first year. So that's why Ussher (and some others) guessed that it couldn't really be 538 but two years later, 536, adjusting the Canon by two years to allow for the book of Daniel. Since that only got them 2 of the extra 4 years, they also moved Nebuchadnezzar's first year back from 604 to 606. Unfortunately for Russell and Barbour, and for others who had relied on works by Ussher, thousands of tablets had been discovered that showed that Ptolemy's Canon was exactly correct all along. This meant that sooner or later they would recognize that the real date was 587 for Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year (destruction of Jerusalem) and 538 for Cyrus 1st year. There was no admission by Barbour and Russell in their early publications that they had slipped Nebuchadnezzar's 18/19th year (destruction of Jerusalem) into the date that had actually been intended in the scholarly literature as the year Nebuchadnezzar first came to power (0th year to 1st regnal year).
Of course, Russell did discuss in a Watch Tower whether there had been a zero year, and dismissed the correct answer because it would have moved the 1914 date to 1915. Russell began using the 1915 date in place of 1914, especially when he surmised that it was not likely that everything he had expected still had enough time to happen. For a few months from late 1913 to early 1914 Russell twice discussed the possibility that the entire chronology had been wrong and that people might look back with interest on it 100 years from now (which would have been 2014).
When 1914 coincided with WWI, however, Russell never had to think about the zero year question again, and 1914 was used consistently rather than 1915 for the end of the Gentile Times. And so Russell never had to admit he had been wrong. Later, the Watchtower went back again to speaking of 1915 being the end of the Gentile Times, realizing that 1914 had failed to result in anything yet predicted for that year. But that didn't last long.
When Watchtower publications finally admitted they had been wrong about the zero year, it was 1943/1944, and the solution was to move back the destruction of Jerusalem from 606 to 607. By 1944 it was too late to move 1914 to 1915, and there was never any evidence for either 606 or 607, anyway. It was 587/586 all along, so sticking with 606 was neither here nor there.
But P.S.L.Johnson, who worked with Russell, had already noticed during Russell's lifetime that Cyrus' first year was actually 538, something we know today, but Russell still didn't want to accept. P.S.L.Johnson said he checked a dozen encyclopedias, and all of them said 538. (So much for Russell's claim that ALL students of chronology had said 536!)
In 1944, the Watchtower finally compromised by one of those two years towards Ptolemy's Canon, and used 537. Then finally in 1949, the Watchtower admitted that Cyrus first year was actually 538, the date that Ptolemy's Canon had indicated all along. This meant that we now had to explain a two year adjustment. The solution was to speculate that Cyrus decree had been near the end of his first year, and that it took well into the next year for the Jews to pack and travel and resettle.
That fixed one of the two adjusted years, and this was the actual time when the zero year problem was admitted, that provided the other adjusted year, when 606 was changed to 607. This way 1914 could remain intact, no matter what mistakes had to be readjusted from previous history.

Yes. Basically. I'm not trying to get too technical here, but the Heavenly Kingdom has been a part of Jehovah's heavenly organization from "time indefinite." This is why you will more often see the idea worded like this:
*** w09 4/15 p. 30 par. 10 Appreciating Jesus—The Greater David and the Greater Solomon ***
. . . in 1914 when he was enthroned as King in the heavenly Kingdom.
*** w05 5/1 p. 11 par. 14 The Resurrection—A Teaching That Affects You ***
In 1914, Jehovah enthroned Jesus as Messianic King of the heavenly Kingdom and commanded him to rule in the midst of his enemies
*** w00 5/15 p. 17 par. 10 Have Faith in God’s Prophetic Word! ***
When “the appointed times of the nations” ended in 1914, God established the heavenly Kingdom under Christ.
So, technically, Jesus became the King of a Heavenly Kingdom that had been there all along. It was now set up or established under Christ. This is why he is said to hand it back to the his God and Father when the "mission" is accomplished. (1 Cor 15:24, below)
(1 Corinthians 15:23-27) 23 But each one in his own proper order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who belong to the Christ during his presence. [literally, at his parousia] 24 Next, the end, when he hands over the Kingdom to his God and Father, when he has brought to nothing all government and all authority and power. 25 For he must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. 26 And the last enemy, death, is to be brought to nothing. 27 For God “subjected all things under his feet.”. .
But the expressions "the Messianic/Davidic Kingdom" and the "Heavenly Kingdom" have at times, especially in the past, been carefully distinguished, but it is now simpler, and we often say "the heavenly kingdom was 'established' in 1914" which is the same as saying it was "set up" then. In fact, it was really only supposed to be "set up" in a new and different way starting in 1914, where Jehovah entrusted Christ to rule from his right hand, and go on conquering, first by proving his power over the Devil by casting him out of heaven, gathering a congregation of loyal subjects, commanding those subjects to go preaching, declaring that the "lease" of power that had been given to the nations had now run out, etc
That's a good question. But it appears that they must wait until the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous.
(Revelation 6:9-11) . . .When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the witness they had given. 10 They shouted with a loud voice, saying: “Until when, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, are you refraining from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 And a white robe was given to each of them, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the number was filled of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed as they had been.
As for the resurrection of the righteous:
(Matthew 13:41-43) 41 The Son of man will send his angels, and they will collect out from his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling and people who practice lawlessness, 42 and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be. 43 At that time the righteous ones will shine as brightly as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. . .
The Watchtower used to say that this resurrection started in 1918, but inconsistently, the words "at that time" are now applied to a future time associated with the "great tribulation." The Watchtower still allows that this first resurrection of those anointed already sleeping in death would likely have happened between 1914 and 1935, with 1918 still being "an interesting possibility" 
*** w07 1/1 p. 28 par. 12 “The First Resurrection”—Now Under Way! ***
Jesus Christ was anointed as the future King of God’s Kingdom in the fall of 29 C.E. Three and a half years later, in the spring of 33 C.E., he was resurrected as a mighty spirit person. Could it, then, be reasoned that since Jesus was enthroned in the fall of 1914, the resurrection of his faithful anointed followers began three and a half years later, in the spring of 1918? That is an interesting possibility. Although this cannot be directly confirmed in the Bible, it is not out of harmony with other scriptures that indicate that the first resurrection got under way soon after Christ’s presence began.
This 1918 date had been taught as a definite thing, for many years, but it was really just a leftover piece of the tradition about "parallel dispensations." In the earlier version of this parallel dispensation, there were 3.5 year segments from Oct 1844 to Passover/Spring 1878 to October 1881. (Jesus had been raised in the spring of 33, 3.5 years after he became Christ in 29 C.E.) This had been updated to October 1914 +3.5= Spring 1918, a parallel time for a resurrection. Since there is no Biblical basis for parallel dispensations, this had to be dropped to only "an interesting possibility."
*** w98 2/1 p. 17 pars. 18-19 Greater Blessings Through the New Covenant ***
Then Daniel saw that “the holy ones took possession of the kingdom itself.” Jesus is the one “like a son of man” who, in 1914, received the heavenly Kingdom from Jehovah God. His spirit-anointed disciples are “the holy ones” who share with him in that Kingdom. (1 Thessalonians 2:12) How?
19 After their death, these anointed ones are like Jesus raised from the dead as immortal spirit creatures to serve with him as kings and priests in heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:50-53; Revelation 20:4, 6)
(1 Corinthians 15:50-52) . . .. 51 Look! I tell you a sacred secret: We will not all fall asleep in death, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the blink of an eye, during the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised up incorruptible, and we will be changed.
I think if we look closely at these arguments presented in the Watchtower, we'll see at least 5 problems where the Watchtower is inconsistent with the Scriptures. Otherwise I would not bring up the problems with the doctrine.

It was always blamed mostly on the Catholics, but mostly through innuendo. Judge Howe, the primary judge, would not give them bail in 1918. But a Judge Mantey made a bigger deal out of it. If they had gotten bail, they may have been able to stay out of jail until the appeals process was finished, which could easily have lasted the number of months they were in prison. In other words, there probably would never have been any prison, if they got bail. And when the case went to appeal Judge Mantey still dissented on the bail issue, even after a year, but it didn't override the other two judges (including Howe) who allowed the appeal on $10,000 bail apiece. Judge Mantey was a Catholic, with high respect by the church, and even had an unrelated commendation from the Vatican. And he also got in legal trouble for taking bribes later in his career.
Also, the book "Finished Mystery" was first banned in Canada before the USA followed suit. In Canada, where many Catholics live, preachers had spoken out against the book on religious grounds, too, not just political grounds.
But during these times, several anti-war preachers and religious leaders and political activists went to prison under exactly the same charges. Some of these others spent much longer in jail than the brothers in the Society.
Nothing specific. The Brooklyn Eagle never liked the Bible Students and often exposed legal issues that Russell had gone through. It's hard to read some of their reporting of the trial without detecting just a bit of "gloating."
Adding: I read about 1,000 pages of FBI files from the time they were still putting together the evidence for a case. This was mostly starting around late-February 1918, and I see nothing even in the earliest correspondence that was religious in nature. It was very political in nature. The FBI (and Justice Dept lawyers) and War Department were writing back and forth in some of the earliest correspondence, and they obviously didn't like anyone who might discourage the draft or who might promote ideas for how to avoid the draft.

Caution: my own commentary will likely seem critical of the interpretation given by the Watchtower publications, for reasons that I will try to make clear. Not because the WT interpretations are necessarily wrong, but because they are so often presented as fact in so many publications, when overall, it is just an interpretation. The following was said in the "Revelation - Grand Climax" book, which explains why no interpretation, except that given in the Bible itself, should be treated as a fact.
*** re chap. 2 p. 9 The Grand Theme of the Bible ***
Interpreting the Scriptures The mysteries locked up in the book of Revelation have for long baffled sincere students of the Bible. In God’s due time, those secrets had to be unlocked, but how, when, and to whom? Only God’s spirit could make known the meaning as the appointed time drew near. (Revelation 1:3) Those sacred secrets would be revealed to God’s zealous slaves on earth so that they would be strengthened to make known his judgments. (Matthew 13:10, 11) It is not claimed that the explanations in this publication are infallible. Like Joseph of old, we say: “Do not interpretations belong to God?” (Genesis 40:8) At the same time, however, we firmly believe that the explanations set forth herein harmonize with the Bible in its entirety, showing how remarkably divine prophecy has been fulfilled in the world events of our catastrophic times.
A couple of the ideas found in this same book have already undergone some changes. TTH commented on the underlined part of the above quotation saying:
That's the spirit in which I would like to share a possibly "simpler" reading of this portion of Revelation. Some might not think the current explanation is complex, but I think when we look into it carefully, we can see that our current explanation produces some complexities that aren't seen until we reflect and meditate on the scriptures involved. And, of course, some might think that a supposedly "simpler" reading is wrong. That's quite alright, because I'm not 100 percent happy with it either.
So here's hoping that others can defend what's right with the current definition, and what's wrong with the alternatives, or vice versa.

Nice and lively here today 😀
 
Now don't lie JTR, there was definitely a point
 
I am sorry. I should have prefaced it with "no need to read" . I really just posted it to illustrate that we don't do this anymore and that we have progressed as with the "WT 66 Question from readers" @b4ucuhear posted, about changes in truth where it says "at times there may be changes in viewpoint. Our basic belief may be sound Scriptural truth, but there may be some details that we did not fully understand in the past. In time, with the aid of Jehovah’s spirit, we get those matters cleared up". It is a little ironic though that after this WT was printed, the next WT- 68, the article I posted, there was the attempt at arriving at a specific date, so then THAT had to be cleared up after 1975. But now, not only are things cleared up, but they are also simplified, and as Br. Splane said in his 2014 talk, we no longer ascribe types and antitypes to everything and we try hard "not to go beyond the things that are written".
I can understand why the early Bible students felt the need to unravel every "mystery" in the Bible. After all, why are they there? All these numbers and prophesies are there for a reason. But as the same 66 WT says: "...we do not know all there is to know. In fact, even when the post-Armageddon system of things is ushered in we will not know everything. Throughout all eternity there will always be more to learn". 
So we are slowly learning. Perhaps this will also apply to the 1914 doctrine one day....

After today's WT study I was reminded of how much simpler and clearer we have become. There are still some speculative elements there, but overall its nothing compared to some past WT studies, and although this might be slightly off topic here (but still on topic with regard to "difficult doctrine") I would just like to post one example from 1968. (WT 68/8/15) 
Either people were more patient and studious than they are now, or even back then, perhaps only a handful were able to wrap their heads around this study. I will be bold enough to say many may have just heard "end in 1975", and that's it.
Why Are You Looking Forward to 1975?
1, 2. (a) What has sparked special interest in the year 1975, and with what results? (b) But what questions are raised?
WHAT about all this talk concerning the year 1975? Lively discussions, some based on speculation, have burst into flame during recent months among serious students of the Bible. Their interest has been kindled by the belief that 1975 will mark the end of 6,000 years of human history since Adam’s creation. The nearness of such an important date indeed fires the imagination and presents unlimited possibilities for discussion.
2 But wait! How do we know their calculations are correct? What basis is there for saying Adam was created nearly 5,993 years ago? Does the one Book that can be implicitly trusted for its truthful historical accuracy, namely, the Inspired Word of Jehovah, the Holy Bible, give support and credence to such a conclusion?
3. Is the date for Adam’s creation as found in many copies of the Bible part of the inspired Scriptures, and do all agree on the date?
3 In the marginal references of the Protestant Authorized or King James Version, and in the footnotes of certain editions of the Catholic Douay version, the date of man’s creation is said to be 4004 B.C.E. This marginal date, however, is no part of the inspired text of the Holy Scriptures, since it was first suggested more than fifteen centuries after the last Bible writer died, and was not added to any edition of the Bible until 1701 C.E. It is an insertion based upon the conclusions of an Irish prelate, the Anglican Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656). Ussher’s chronology was only one of the many sincere efforts made during the past centuries to determine the time of Adam’s creation. A hundred years ago when a count was taken, no less than 140 different timetables had been published by serious scholars. In such chronologies the calculations as to when Adam was created vary all the way from 3616 B.C.E. to 6174 B.C.E., with one wild guess set at 20,000 B.C.E. Such conflicting answers contained in the voluminous libraries around the world certainly tend to compound the confusion when seeking an answer to the above questions.
4. What have we learned in our previous study, and, hence, what are we now prepared to do?
4 In the previous article we learned from the Inspired Writings themselves, independent of the uninspired marginal notes of some Bibles, that the seventy years of desolation of the land of Judah began to count about October 1, 607 B.C.E. The beginning of this seventy-year period was obviously tied to its ending, that is, with the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. So with 607 B.C.E. as dependably fixed on our Gregorian calendar as the absolute date of 539 B.C.E. we are prepared to move farther back in the count of time, to the dating of other important events in Bible history. For instance, the years when Saul, David and Solomon reigned successively over God’s chosen people can now be dated in terms of the present-day calendar.
5. What history-making events took place in 997 B.C.E.?
5 At the death of Solomon his kingdom was split into two parts. The southern two-tribe part, composed of Judah and Benjamin, continued to be ruled by Solomon’s descendants, and was known as the kingdom of Judah. The northern ten tribes made up the kingdom of Israel, sometimes called “Samaria” after the name of its later capital city, and were ruled over by Jeroboam and his successors. By our applying the prophetic time period of 390 years found in Ezekiel 4:1-9 with regard to Jerusalem’s destruction the death of Solomon is found to be in the year 997 B.C.E. This was 390 years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.
ISRAEL’S ERRORS CARRIED 390 YEARS
6, 7. What time periods are referred to in Ezekiel 4:1-9?
6 Notice what is said on this matter by the prophet Ezekiel:
7 “And you, O son of man, take for yourself a brick, and you must put it before you, and engrave upon it a city, even Jerusalem. And you must lay siege against it . . . It is a sign to the house of Israel. And as for you, lie upon your left side, and you must lay the error of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you will lie upon it you will carry their error. And I myself must give to you the years of their error to the number of three hundred and ninety days, and you must carry the error of the house of Israel. And you must complete them. And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah forty days. A day for a year, a day for a year, is what I have given you. . . . And as for you, take for yourself wheat and barley and broad beans and lentils and millet and spelt, and you must put them in one utensil and make them into bread for you, for the number of the days that you are lying upon your side; three hundred and ninety days you will eat it.”—Ezek. 4:1-9.
8. When did the carrying of the “error” of the southern kingdom end?
8 This chapter 4 of Ezekiel, was not recounting past historical events but was prophecy of future events. It was telling of the time in the future when the glorious city of Jerusalem would be besieged and its inhabitants taken captive, all of which occurred in 607 B.C.E. So the forty years spoken of in the case of Judah ended in that year. The “error” of the northern kingdom, said to be carried for 390 years, was nearly tenfold greater when compared with the error of Judah carried for 40 years. When, then, did these 390 years end?
9. What indicates the “error” of the northern kingdom also ended in 607 B.C.E.?
9 They were not terminated in 740 B.C.E., when Samaria was destroyed, for the simple fact that Ezekiel enacted this prophetic drama sometime after “the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin,” which would make the termination not earlier than 613 B.C.E., that is, 127 years after the destruction of Samaria by Assyria. (Ezek. 1:2) Since this whole prophetic drama plainly pointed forward to the destruction of Jerusalem, and since both the house of Israel and the house of Judah were in reality one inseparable covenant-bound people, the remnant of whom would not be a divided people upon their return from exile, there is only one reasonable conclusion, namely, the errors of both houses ran concurrently and terminated at the same time in 607 B.C.E. In this way the 70 years of desolation of the land of Judah ended 70 years after the termination of carrying the error of both houses, so that thus a remnant of both houses could return to the site of Jerusalem.
10. So when did the “error” of Israel begin?
10 If the “error of the house of Israel” ended in 607, its beginning, 390 years prior thereto, was in 997 B.C.E. It began the year that King Solomon died and Jeroboam committed error, yes, great error, in that Jeroboam, whose domain was ripped off from the house of David, “proceeded to part Israel from following Jehovah,” causing them “to sin with a great sin.”—2 Ki. 17:21.
DATE OF EXODUS, 1513 B.C.E.
11, 12. What other event in man’s history are we now prepared to date, and with the aid of what key text?
11 Looking back into the distant past we see another milestone in man’s history, the never-to-be-forgotten exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, under the leadership of Moses. Were it not for Jehovah’s faithful Word the Bible, it would be impossible to locate this great event accurately on the calendar, for Egyptian hieroglyphics are conspicuously silent concerning the humiliating defeat handed that first world power by Jehovah. But with the Bible’s chronology, how relatively simple it is to date that memorable event!
12 At 1 Kings 6:1 we read: “And it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv, that is, the second month, after Solomon became king over Israel, that he proceeded to build the house to Jehovah.”
13, 14. (a) On the Gregorian calendar, in what year did Solomon begin to reign? (b) In what year did he begin the building of the temple?
13 With this information one has only to determine what calendar year Solomon began building the temple, and it is then an easy matter to figure when Pharaoh’s army was destroyed in the Red Sea.
14 “And the days that Solomon had reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel were forty years.” (1 Ki. 11:42) This means that his last full regnal year ended in the spring of 997 B.C.E.* Adding 40 to 997 gives 1037 B.C.E., the year that Solomon began his peaceful reign. He did not begin the temple building, as the account says, until the second month of the fourth year of his reign, which means he had ruled a full three years and one month. Thus subtracting 3 years from 1037 one gets 1034 B.C.E., the year that the building work began. The time of the year was the second month Ziv, that is, April-May. This, the Bible says, was “in the four hundred and eightieth year” after the Israelites left Egypt.
15. (a) Explain the difference between a cardinal and an ordinal number. (b) So when did the Israelites leave Egypt?
15 Anytime we put a “th” on the end of a number, for instance on the number 10, saying 10th, the number is changed from a cardinal to an ordinal number. When one speaks about playing baseball in the tenth inning of the game, it means that nine full innings have already been played, but only part of the tenth; ten innings are not yet completed. Likewise, when the Bible uses an ordinal number, saying that the building of the temple began in the 480th year after the Israelites left Egypt, and when that particular year on the calendar is known to be 1034 B.C.E., then we add 479 full years (not 480) to 1034 and arrive at the date 1513 B.C.E., the year of the Exodus. It too was springtime, Passover time, the 14th day of the month Nisan.
HOW LONG SINCE THE FLOOD?
16. How far back in history have we now penetrated, and what are the prospects of probing even deeper?
16 Already with the help supplied by the Bible we have accurately measured back from the spring of this year 1968 C.E. to the spring of 1513 B.C.E., a total of 3,480 years. With the continued faithful memory and accurate historical record of Jehovah’s Holy Word we can penetrate even deeper into the past, back to the flood of Noah’s day.
17. In recounting Israel’s experiences, to what events and to what time period does Stephen refer?
17 Stephen, the first martyred footstep follower of Jesus Christ, referred to what Jehovah said would befall Abraham’s offspring. “Moreover, God spoke to this effect, that his seed would be alien residents in a foreign land and the people would enslave them and afflict them for four hundred years.” (Acts 7:6; Gen. 15:13) Stephen here mentions three of Israel’s past experiences: As alien residents in a foreign land, as people in slavery, and as people afflicted for four hundred years.
18. What argues against the conclusion that these events were separate experiences following one another in consecutive order?
18 It would be a mistake to assume that all three of these experiences were of equal duration, or that they were separate individual experiences that followed one another in consecutive order. It was long after their entrance into Egypt as aliens that they were enslaved, more than 70 years later, and sometime after the death of Joseph. Rather, Stephen was saying that within the same 400-year period in which they were afflicted, they were also enslaved and were also alien residents.
19. How do we know the Israelites were “aliens” before entering Egypt?
19 Please note that, when Stephen said they were “alien residents in a foreign land . . . for four hundred years,” he did not say and he did not mean to imply that they were not alien residents before entering Egypt. So it is a mistake to insist that this text proves the Israelites were in Egypt for four hundred years. It is true that, upon entering Egypt and being presented before Pharaoh for the first time, Joseph’s brothers said: “We have come to reside as aliens in the land.” But they did not say nor did they mean that up until then they had not been alien residents, for on the same occasion their father Jacob, when asked by Pharaoh how old he was, declared: “The days of the years of my alien residences are a hundred and thirty years.” And not only had Jacob spent his whole lifetime as an alien resident before coming to Egypt, but he told Pharaoh that his forefathers before him also had been alien residents.—Gen. 47:4-9.
20. When did these 400 years end, and when did they begin?
20 Since the affliction of Israel ended in 1513 B.C.E., it must have begun in 1913, 400 years earlier. That year would correspond to the time that Isaac was afflicted by Ishmael “poking fun” at him on the day that Isaac was weaned. At the time, Isaac was five years old, and this was long before the Israelites entered Egypt.—Gen. 21:8, 9.
21, 22. Were the Israelites 430 years in Egypt exclusively, and how do certain ancient manuscripts shed light on this point?
21 Well, then, how long were the Israelites down in Egypt as alien residents? Exodus 12:40, 41 says: “And the dwelling of the sons of Israel, who had dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came about at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, it even came about on this very day that all the armies of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt.”
22 Here Ex 12 verse 40 in the Septuagint reads: “But the dwelling of the sons of Israel which they [and their fathers, Alexandrine MS] dwelt in the land of Egypt AND IN THE LAND OF CANAAN [was] four hundred and thirty years long.” The Samaritan Pentateuch reads: “IN THE LAND OF CANAAN and in the land of Egypt.” Thus both of these versions, which are based on Hebrew texts older than the Masoretic, include the words “in the land of Canaan” together with the word “Egypt.”
23. (a) So how long were the Israelites actually in Egypt, and how does Paul confirm this? (b) Explain the difference between the 400 and the 430 years mentioned in the Scriptures.
23 From the time that Abraham entered Canaan until Isaac’s birth was 25 years;* from that time until Jacob’s birth, 60 more years; and after that it was another 130 years before Jacob entered Egypt. All together this makes a total of 215 years, exactly half of the 430 years, spent in Canaan before moving in to Egypt. (Gen. 12:4; 21:5; 25:26; 47:9) The apostle Paul, under inspiration, also confirms that from the making of the Abrahamic covenant at the time the patriarch moved into Canaan, it was 430 years down to the institution of the Law covenant.—Gal. 3:17.
24, 25. The Flood began in what calendar year, and how long was this before Abraham entered Canaan?
24 By adding this 430 years to the 1513 it puts us back to 1943 B.C.E., the time when Abraham first entered Canaan following the death of his father Terah in Haran, Mesopotamia. It is now only a matter of adding up the years of a few generations to date the Flood correctly. The figures are given in Genesis, chapters 11 and 12, and may be summarized as follows:
From start of Flood
To Arpachshad’s birth (Gen. 11:10) 2 years
To birth of Shelah (11:12) 35 “
To birth of Eber (11:14) 30 “
To birth of Peleg (11:26) 34 “
To birth of Reu (11:18) 30 “
To birth of Serug (11:20) 32 “
To birth of Nahor (11:22) 30 “
To birth of Terah (11:24) 29 “
To death of Terah in Haran, and
Abram’s departure to Canaan
at age of 75 (11:32; 12:4) 205 “
Total 427 years
25 Adding these 427 years to the year 1943 B.C.E. dates the beginning of the Deluge at 2370 B.C.E., 4,337 years ago.
6,000 YEARS FROM ADAM’S CREATION
26, 27. (a) How long before the Flood was Adam created? In what year? (b) What indicates that Adam was created in the fall of the year?
26 In a similar manner it is only necessary to add up the following years involving ten pre-Flood generations to get the date of Adam’s creation, namely:
From Adam’s creation
To birth of Seth (Gen. 5:3) 130 years
To birth of Enosh (5:6) 105 “
To birth of Kenan (5:9) 90 “
To birth of Mahalalel (5:12) 70 “
To birth of Jared (5:15) 65 “
To birth of Enoch (5:18) 162 “
To birth of Methuselah (5:21) 65 “
To birth of Lamech (5:25) 187 “
To birth of Noah (5:28, 29) 182 “
To beginning of Flood (7:6) 600 “
Total 1,656 years
27 Adding this figure 1,656 to 2,370 gives 4026 B.C.E., the Gregorian calendar year in which Adam was created. Since man naturally began to count time with his own beginning, and since man’s most ancient calendars started each year in the autumn, it is reasonable to assume that the first man Adam was created in the fall of the year.
28. How does this chronology differ from Ussher’s in regard to Adam’s creation?
28 Thus, through a careful independent study by dedicated Bible scholars who have pursued the subject for a number of years, and who have not blindly followed some traditional chronological calculations of Christendom, we have arrived at a date for Adam’s creation that is 22 years more distant in the past than Ussher’s figure. This means time is running out two decades sooner than traditional chronology anticipates.
29. Why be concerned with the date of Adam’s creation?
29 After much of the mathematics and genealogies, really, of what benefit is this information to us today? Is it not all dead history, as uninteresting and profitless as walking through a cemetery copying old dates off tombstones? After all, why should we be any more interested in the date of Adam’s creation than in the birth of King Tut? Well, for one thing, if 4,026 is added to 1,968 (allowing for the lack of a zero year between C.E. and B.C.E.) one gets a total of 5,993 years, come this autumn, since Adam’s creation. That means, in the fall of the year 1975, a little over seven years from now (and not in 1997 as would be the case if Ussher’s figures were correct), it will be 6,000 years since the creation of Adam, the father of all mankind!
ADAM CREATED AT CLOSE OF “SIXTH DAY”
30. What may occur before 1975, but what attitude should we take?
30 Are we to assume from this study that the battle of Armageddon will be all over by the autumn of 1975, and the long-looked-for thousand-year reign of Christ will begin by then? Possibly, but we wait to see how closely the seventh thousand-year period of man’s existence coincides with the sabbathlike thousand-year reign of Christ. If these two periods run parallel with each other as to the calendar year, it will not be by mere chance or accident but will be according to Jehovah’s loving and timely purposes. Our chronology, however, which is reasonably accurate (but admittedly not infallible), at the best only points to the autumn of 1975 as the end of 6,000 years of man’s existence on earth. It does not necessarily mean that 1975 marks the end of the first 6,000 years of Jehovah’s seventh creative “day.” Why not? Because after his creation Adam lived some time during the “sixth day,” which unknown amount of time would need to be subtracted from Adam’s 930 years, to determine when the sixth seven-thousand-year period or “day” ended, and how long Adam lived into the “seventh day.” And yet the end of that sixth creative “day” could end within the same Gregorian calendar year of Adam’s creation. It may involve only a difference of weeks or months, not years.
31. What do the first two chapters of Genesis disclose?
31 In regard to Adam’s creation it is good to read carefully what the Bible says. Moses in compiling the book of Genesis referred to written records or “histories” that predated the Flood. The first of these begins with Genesis 1:1 and ends at Genesis 2:4 with the words, “This is the history of the heavens and the earth . . . ” The second historical document begins with Genesis 2:5 and ends with Ge verse two of chapter five. Hence we have two separate accounts of creation from slightly different points of view. In the second of these accounts, in Genesis 2:19, the original Hebrew verb translated “was forming” is in the progressive imperfect form. This does not mean that the animals and birds were created after Adam was created. Genesis 1:20-28 shows it does not mean that. So, in order to avoid contradiction between Ge chapter one and chapter two, Genesis 2:19, 20 must be only a parenthetical remark thrown in to explain the need for creating a “helper” for man. So the progressive Hebrew verb form could also be rendered as “had been forming.”—See Rotherham’s translation (Ro), also Leeser’s (Le).
32. What indicates the sixth creative day did not end immediately with Adam’s creation?
32 These two creation accounts in the book of Genesis, though differing slightly in the treatment of the material, are in perfect agreement with each other on all points, including the fact that Eve was created after Adam. So not until after this event did the sixth creative day come to an end. Exactly how soon after Adam’s creation is not disclosed. “After that [Adam and Eve’s creation] God saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a sixth day.” (Gen. 1:31) After the sixth creative day ends, the seventh one begins.
33. (a) How do we know the end of the sixth creative day came very soon after Adam’s creation? (b) How does Genesis 1:31 prove the sixth day ended before Adam and Eve sinned?
33 This time between Adam’s creation and the beginning of the seventh day, the day of rest, let it be noted, need not have been a long time. It could have been a rather short one. The naming of the animals by Adam, and his discovery that there was no complement for himself, required no great length of time. The animals were in subjection to Adam; they were peaceful; they came under God’s leading; they were not needing to be chased down and caught. It took Noah only seven days to get the same kinds of animals, male and female, into the Ark. (Gen. 7:1-4) Eve’s creation was quickly accomplished, ‘while Adam was sleeping.’ (Gen. 2:21) So the lapse of time between Adam’s creation and the end of the sixth creative day, though unknown, was a comparatively short period of time. The pronouncement at the end of the sixth day, “God saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good,” proves that the beginning of the great seventh day of the creative week did not wait until after Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the Garden of Eden.
1975! . . . AND FAR BEYOND!
34. What has brought about a better understanding of Bible chronology?
34 Bible chronology is an interesting study by which historic events are placed in their order of occurrence along the stream of time. The Watch Tower Society over the years has endeavored to keep its associates abreast with the latest scholarship that proves consistent with historic and prophetic events recorded in the Scriptures. Major problems in sacred chronology have been straightened out either due to fulfillment of Bible prophecies or by reason of archaeological discoveries or because better Bible translations convey more clearly the records of the original languages. However, several knotty problems of chronology of a minor nature are not yet resolved. For example, at the time of the exodus from Egypt when Jehovah changed the beginning of the year from autumn time on the secular calendar to spring time on the sacred calendar, was there, in the Jewish calendar, a loss or a gain of six months?—Ex. 12:1, 2.
35. Why is this no time for indifference and complacency?
35 One thing is absolutely certain, Bible chronology reinforced with fulfilled Bible prophecy shows that six thousand years of man’s existence will soon be up, yes, within this generation! (Matt. 24:34) This is, therefore, no time to be indifferent and complacent. This is not the time to be toying with the words of Jesus that “concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matt. 24:36) To the contrary, it is a time when one should be keenly aware that the end of this system of things is rapidly coming to its violent end. Make no mistake, it is sufficient that the Father himself knows both the “day and hour”!
36. What helpful example did the apostles leave us in this regard?
36 Even if one cannot see beyond 1975, is this any reason to be less active? The apostles could not see even this far; they knew nothing about 1975. All they could see was a short time ahead in which to finish the work assigned to them. (1 Pet. 4:7) Hence, there was a ring of alarm and a cry of urgency in all their writings. (Acts 20:20; 2 Tim. 4:2) And rightly so. If they had delayed or dillydallied and had been complacent with the idea the end was some thousands of years off they would never have finished running the race set before them. No, they ran hard and they ran fast, and they won! It was a life or death matter with them.—1 Cor. 9:24; 2 Tim. 4:7; Heb. 12:1.
37. So what will you be doing between now and 1975? And beyond that, what?
37 So too with Jehovah’s faithful witnesses in this latter half of the twentieth century. They have the true Christian point of view. Their strenuous evangelistic activity is not something peculiar to this present decade. They have not dedicated their lives to serve Jehovah only until 1975. Christians have been running this way ever since Christ Jesus blazed the trail and commanded his disciples, “Follow me!” So keep this same mental attitude in you that was in Christ Jesus. Let nothing slow you down or cause you to tire and give out. Those who will flee Babylon the Great and this Satanic system of things are now running for their lives, headed for God’s kingdom, and they will not stop at 1975. O no! They will keep on in this glorious way that leads to everlasting life, praising and serving Jehovah for ever and ever!
 
 
You are referring to Luke 10:17,18 "Then the 70 returned with joy, saying: “Lord, even the demons are made subject to us by the use of your name.” At that he said to them: “I see Satan already fallen like lightning from heaven". 
But one of the cross references to Satan falling is Revelation 12:7-9   "And war broke out in heaven: Miʹcha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8  but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9  So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him".
I wonder why, since as you say we are to understand that it referred to the power Satan had over Jesus and his disciples.
In a way no, but I think we are meant to see that the world in general was brought into more of a turmoil than it had been before, with the world warring on a worldwide scale, with lethal weapons capable of total world destruction
I am thinking rather than using the word "defeat" (because Satan won't be defeated until after the 1000 years) the purpose of the battle in heaven in 1914 was to cleanse the heavens of his evil presence. Then during Armageddon it will be to bind him and put him in "jail" for a period of time. So no, I don't think there are several stages of defeat.
 
We are to believe that what changed after the battle in 1914 was the world in general.
 
Yes indeed. But how fatal would it really be if we ignored Jesus words about not knowing the day or hour?

This has been discussed a few times before on this forum.
I typically just rewrite new comments every time a subject comes up, but this time I'll be anti-typical and just re-quote myself from one of those earlier posts. Comments went on for 9 pages on that topic, too.
For context, Israeli Bar Avaddhon wanted to make another modern day application of these periods and said:
By the way, to match these dates day were "greatly rounded" (Rutherford and his associates were released March 26, 1919, not January 1919; see Watchtower, 5/16/2016 all ' article entitled "to whom was entrusted the work"), but even more importantly the writing of Daniel, after mentioning the 1290 days, he says, "Happy is he who waits and who gets to 1335 days!" - Daniel 12: 12 "Getting to ..." means to add to what was there before. The rest of this post is a copy of my brief response to that:
I think you are right that the basic idea here is more likely a set of time periods from the same starting point. If I were to tell someone that they are going to have to wait 1260 days for something, but that they might really have to get to 1290 before seeing it, and that they will be truly happy if they wait for 1,335 days, then I don't think it's likely that anyone would guess that I meant 3,885 days in total. And yet this is something like the Watchtower's view. I also think that if such a specific number of days were intended for us today that they would match to a specific number of days in a calendar. I agree, too, that the 1,260 of Revelation 11 & 12 is key. (And of Daniel 7:25; 12:7) The Watchtower also generally agrees on this point, even though they move the 1,290 as a completely new time period away from the 1,260.
The explanation given in the Watch Tower publications, as you say, are "greatly rounded." None of them can even reach back as far as October 1914, the most important date/event in modern history according to the new "God's Kingdom Rules" book. The best they can do is start it near the end of December 1914, just a few days from January 1915. In fact, since they end it around June 21, 1918 it must start around December 21, 1914. To even catch this little piece of the tail-end of the all-important year 1914, they must end this period with the sentencing, rather than the actual imprisonment. In the scheme of things, the sentencing was just another part of a process that had begun in the "scheming" that began back in March 1918 when the FBI was building a case based on the Finished Mystery book.
*** dp chap. 9 p. 142 par. 28 Who Will Rule the World? ***
God’s witnesses would preach dressed in sackcloth for 42 months, or 1,260 days, and then be killed. When did this time period begin and end? . . . Hence, beginning in December 1914, that small band of witnesses preached “in sackcloth.” . . . Harassment of God’s anointed ones climaxed on June 21, 1918, when the president, J. F. Rutherford, and prominent members of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society were sentenced on false charges to long prison terms. Intending “to change times and law,” the “small” horn had effectively killed the organized preaching work. (Revelation 11:7) So the foretold period of “a time, and times and half a time” ended in June 1918.
The start of the next period 1,290 days does not even attach to the first period without a several month gap. And again, even to get it as close as possible they used the "proposal" of the League of Nations rather than the actual start of the League of the Nations:
*** dp chap. 17 p. 300 pars. 22-23 Identifying True Worshipers in the Time of the End ***
The League was officially proposed in January 1919. At that time, then, both conditions of Daniel 12:11 were met. So the 1,290 days began in early 1919 and ran until the autumn (Northern Hemisphere) of 1922. During that time, did the holy ones make progress toward becoming whitened and cleansed in God’s eyes? They certainly did! In March 1919 the president of the Watch Tower Society and his close associates were released from prison. They were later exonerated of the false charges against them. Aware that their work was far from over, they got busy immediately, organizing a convention for September 1919. In the same year, a companion magazine to The Watch Tower was first published. Originally called The Golden Age (now Awake!), it has always supported The Watchtower in fearlessly exposing the corruption of this world and in helping God’s people to remain clean. By the end of the foretold 1,290 days, the holy ones were well on the way to a cleansed and restored standing. In September 1922, right about the time when this period ended, they held a landmark convention at Cedar Point, Ohio, U.S.A.
Notice again that the periods do not work out. 1290 days is about 17 months, so that a starting date in January would have to end in August, and the convention wasn't until September 1919, which is why it ends at a time when they were only "preparing" for this assembly.
And the next period of 1,335 days is even looser in terms of anchoring to any specific occasions. Note:
*** dp chap. 17 pp. 303-304 pars. 24-26 Identifying True Worshipers in the Time of the End ***
“Happy is the one who is keeping in expectation and who arrives at the one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days!” (Daniel 12:12) The angel gives no clues as to when this period begins or ends. History suggests that it simply follows on the heels of the preceding period. In that case it would run from the autumn of 1922 to the late spring of 1926 (Northern Hemisphere). Did the holy ones come to a state of happiness by the end of that period? Yes, in important spiritual ways. 25 Even after the convention in 1922 (shown on page 302), some of God’s holy ones were still looking longingly to the past. The basic study material for their meetings was still the Bible and the volumes of Studies in the Scriptures, by C. T. Russell. At that time, there was a widely held view that pointed to 1925 as the year for the resurrection to begin and for Paradise to be restored to the earth. Thus, many were serving with a fixed date in mind. Some proudly refused to share in the work of preaching to the public. This was not a happy state of affairs. . . . The issue of March 1, 1925, carried the historic article “Birth of the Nation,” giving God’s people a full understanding of what had happened in the 1914-19 period. After 1925 passed, the holy ones no longer served God with an immediate, explicit deadline in view. . . .  At the convention in May 1926, the book Deliverance was released. (See page 302.) This was one of a series of new books designed to replace Studies in the Scriptures. No longer were the holy ones looking to the past. They were looking confidently to the future and the work ahead. As prophesied, the 1,335 days therefore ended with the holy ones in a happy state.
If Daniel had spoken of the 1,335 days as culimating in the most unhappy time period ever for God's people, then this could have made more sense. It would have been very easy to show why this was the most UNHAPPY time period in our organization's history. 1925 had been hyped since 1918 as one of the most important prophecies that the "prophet" -- the Watchtower -- had ever proclaimed, and it turned out to be a miserable failure: a false prophecy. People were now leaving in larger numbers, even those who had hung on past the 1917 organizational debacle. In 1926 Rutherford began to systematically throw away all the old foundations for the time prophecies of Russell. More people were upset. Although Rutherford claims that he had been fighting against Russellite creature worship all along, this was actually the time when Rutherford himself stopped making great claims for Russell and began pushing against Russell's teachings almost "en masse."   Rutherford was beginning to fight with colporteurs and pioneers because they no longer wanted to sell Russell's books if they were pushing doctrines that were now considered "from Satan" (pyramids, etc). But Rutherford still had large stockpiles of these books and insisted that the Lord wanted them sold to the public. The "Bulletin" (Later Informant, later Our Kingdom Ministry) claimed that anyone who balked at this particular edict by Rutherford was going against the Lord himself. More people left the organization over this, and from 1926 to 1932 the campaigns to sell Russell's books continued.
We could go on and on comparing this particular period of sadness and gloom with the periods before and since, but there is definitely enough to make us wonder why these particular time periods were chosen for the 1260, 1290, and 1,335 days. I think there are enough weaknesses in it, that the Society will revisit it -- especially if they realize that more and more Witnesses are looking at the prophecy more closely.
If I get a chance, I'll explain more of the problems I have with the primary solution that is being promoted from the original post in this topic. I think there is a much simpler solution -- it's one we already have used in the publications on a closely related set of time periods related to the half-week (3.5-year period) in the final 70th week in the week-of-years prophecy. I don't doubt there are other possibilities that might seem more exciting, but some of those ones here imply that we can currently predict the times and seasons, and this particular period is one in which Jesus said the end events would come like a thief in the night.
I admit that this is more boring than tying current events to Daniel and Revelation, but there are some excellent reasons to look at it this way (I think) starting with the "two witnesses" and the "olive trees" in Revelation 11. Paul explains the two olive trees very well in Romans 11, and we had already used this tie-in to a 3.5 year period in the discussion of the "keys of the kingdom." Note:
*** w79 10/1 p. 23 pars. 1-2 “The Keys of the Kingdom” and the “Great Crowd” ***
IN THE year 36 C.E. a marked event in Christian history took place in Caesarea on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Whether Philip the evangelizer had settled there by that year we do not know for certain. If he had done so, then why was he not used in connection with a certain army officer of the Italian band of soldiers then stationed there? Philip had preceded the apostle Peter in Christian activity in Samaria, so why not now in Caesarea in 36 C.E.? The inspired Scriptures give us the answer. The Law covenant that Moses had mediated between Jehovah God and Israel at Mount Sinai in Arabia was abolished on the basis of the impalement of Jesus Christ, the descendant of Abraham and King David. That was three years and a half from the water baptism and spirit-anointing of Jesus back in 29 C.E. Nevertheless, Jehovah continued to give preferential treatment to the natural Jews and Samaritans also during this period for three years and a half more, to fulfill the prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27a. This “week” or period of seven years terminated in the seventh lunar month (Tishri) of 36 C.E. From then on the Israelite descendants of Abraham would be put on the same spiritual level as the people of the non-Jewish nations, the uncircumcised Gentiles. After that no more preferential treatment to the Jews by the God of Abraham! How was this demonstrated in 36 C.E.?
From here, we already have a Biblically consistent tie-in between the two witnesses (the witness to the Jews, and the witness to the Gentiles) and the two olive trees (natural Jewish olive tree and the grafted Gentile olive tree) the 42 months or 1260 days. If we look at a few other events with respect to the week of Pentecost of 33, Christ's ascension, etc., we can attempt to work out the differences between a simple 1260 and 1290 and 1335, but I don't even think this is necessarily the answer here.

We do have very good reasons, the math for 1914 wouldn't work out otherwise
Yes, I think we would laugh. After all, messing around with numbers to "fit something you want it to fit" sounds pretty cultish. When looking at this subject again, in light of Br. Splane's talk about types and antitypes, and how he said that (paraphrased) we have to make sure that when we are talking about types, that they are genuine types, because the word of God says they are puts a whole different slant on it. Then the idea is enforced even further when he says who is to decide if a person or event is a type, if the word of God doesn't say anything about it and he quotes Br. Shroeder: ( We need to exercise great care when applying accounts in the Hebrew Scriptures as prophetic patterns or types if these accounts are not applied in the Scriptures themselves).
Therefor reading the account in Daniel 4 without any preconceived ideas, I see these main lessons:
verse 17  "This is by the decree of watchers, and the request is by the word of the holy ones, so that people living may know that the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind and that he gives it to whomever he wants, and he sets up over it even the lowliest of men.”  Lesson: (quite self explanatory really) Jehovah can do what he wants because he is the ultimate sovereign.
verse 27  "Therefore, O king, may my counsel be acceptable to you. Turn away from your sins by doing what is right, and from your iniquity by showing mercy to the poor. It may be that your prosperity will be extended". Lesson: Listen to Jehovah and do right, otherwise Jehovah will discipline you.
verse 37  “Now I, Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, am praising and exalting and glorifying the King of the heavens, because all his works are truth and his ways are just, and because he is able to humiliate those who are walking in pride. Lesson: similar to above, and also proof that Jehovah carries out his discipline. 
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The reasoning put forward as to why this particular chapter of Daniel (4) has greater meaning (paraphrased from WT October 2014) is that the book of Daniel has a central theme, that of God's Kingdom, and keeps pointing forward to the establishment of that Kingdom under the rulership of his Son, Jesus. For example what it says in Daniel 2:44: "“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it alone will stand forever.”
I can see that Daniel Ch 2 is talking about Neb's. dream of the statue, representing subsequent rulerships, and that during the feet period God's Kingdom will come. In my opinion this is one valid and definite description of when the Kingdom will come. Then Chapters 7 and 8 are full of cryptic beasts, Chapter 9 prophesy about the coming of the Messiah including his cutting off, chapter 11 more cryptic descriptions, this time involving the king of the north and south, and the last chapter (12) the time of the end with Michael standing up. I need an encoder! I must admit, because of my more practical disposition, when we studied the Daniel book, I did not pay enough attention. My son was quite small and I had my hands full, and I can't even remember if we studied it again after that?
For example what are these numbers about?: Daniel 12:11  “And from the time that the constant feature has been removed and the disgusting thing that causes desolation has been put in place, there will be 1,290 days. 12  “Happy is the one who keeps in expectation and who arrives at the 1,335 days!" (It's ok, no need to answer, I can look it up myself).
 
,Sorry, I was being confusing. I didn't mean 607 was special. I meant what happened when counting 2520 years from that date, I meant that 1914 was a very significant year.
(have to go, will carry on later)

Very much!
The only numbers in the text of Daniel 4 are "7" and "12" (It's 12 months later when he is struck down to the state of a beast) and although we have fairly good Biblical reasons to turn "7 times" into 7 years and therefore 2,520 days, we have very few if any good reasons to turn those 2,520 days into 2,520 years. Remember that the Watchtower NEVER uses 1,260 days to mean a day for a year, so why should 2,520 days mean years?
I have a feeling that if we had not already accepted this particular inconsistency, we would laugh to ourselves if we found out that the Mormons or Catholics or some other religious group had told us: "Well it says 7 years, but it really means 2,520 years." Or, "It says 12 months, but in the greater fulfillment this means 360 years after the dream."
We would think it just as crazy as if they told us that when Jacob worked for Laban to pay the bride-price for Leah for 7 years, and then another 7 years for Rachel, that there was a "greater fulfillment," where the "greater Jacob" must work 2,520 x 2 = 5,040 years, and this means that the end of the millennium will be 5,040 years after the initial fulfillment, or let's say, for example, from 1750 BCE until the "greater promised land," the New World at the end of 1,000 years in 3290. (Therefore the beginning of the 1,000 year reign will be in 2290 CE.) Had this particular year landed some time between 1878 and 1914, instead of 2290, Barbour (and therefore Russell, too) might have latched onto it and made it fit into their chronology.
(Decided to play Bible's Advocate on your post, even though you weren't asking.)
But nothing of that much import actually happened in 607, since this would have been almost 2 years before Nebuchadnezzar became king. At best, it might be within a few months of when Nebuchadnezzar, as a general of his father's army, took a few exiles from Judea to Babylon. And these exiles might have included Daniel. It would also have been within a couple years of the time that Babylon took over from Assyria as the new "world power" with respect to the Middle East. Babylon's hegemony really was of Biblical prophetic significance, but this is a prophecy that the Watchtower is forced to ignore because it would mean that the Bible already corresponds completely with the secular/historical evidence. We need for it NOT to correspond so that we can say it's off by 20 years. Only then can we make it reach 1914.
But you are right in that we do arrive at a momentous and significant world event. (Russell and Barbour had actually used 606 and didn't realize that this actually brings them to October 1915.) But 1915 was also part of a significant world event.
Satan is already seen falling from heaven in Luke 10, referring to the defeat of his power over Jesus and his disciples. Then Satan is defeated from heaven in 1914 where he is angry because he has a short period of time. (Has he accepted defeat? Because he nearly had the Bible Students back in 1918/19, but has apparently barely hindered the rate of expansion since the 1940's without any significant persecution among at least 92 percent of Witnesses today. Is his time less short now? Is he tired? Has he changed his methods? Have we changed our understanding of his methods? Was he roving about the earth seeking to devour Christians in Paul's day?)
For some reason, we still like Russell's "October 1914" chronology. (See the chart you copied earlier.) Yet, the archduke was shot in July. July, interestingly, was actually much closer to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, which might indicate just how loathe anyone is to tweak the 1914 doctrine. Probably because we need for Russell to be right about something in his chronology, even though he never predicted a war of this kind. He only predicted the fall of all Gentile institutions on earth, while the Jewish Zionist nation would rise unhindered -- therefore it was called the End of the Gentile Times. It's also partly why, when this failed in 1914, he moved the predictions to 1915.
This will be a little repetitive. According to the scriptures, Jesus defeated Satan through his life and sacrifice and resurrection. Then in 1914, it's not really much of a defeat, I guess, mostly just sending him down to earth where he needed to be anyway, to be closer to Jesus' disciples in order to persecute them, to walk about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour, just as he was doing in Paul's day. But can we think of any evil shenanigans that Satan tried after 1914 that he had not tried prior to 1914? After Jesus defeats him in 1914, does he defeat him again at Armageddon, perhaps in an even greater way? Then does Jesus defeat him again at the end of the 1,000 years when he is let loose from an abyss.
Most of this makes Biblical sense, except that the 1914 defeat seems the most redundant to me. The kind of defeat he received in the first century has brought Satan to the place where he continues to wage war with the seed of the woman all these centuries since. The "short period of time" phrase is odd, but then even 100 years is an odd short period of time. How long did that battle with Satan last? What changed after that battle? The Bible tells us what changed after he was thrown down in the first century.
What if one of Satan's most clever tactics was to get us to think of 1914 as the beginning of the parousia, so that we would begin to ignore Jesus words about no one knowing the day or the hour? After all the parousia was to arrive at a time when no one expected.

If I didn't know better, I'd say you are being too hard on yourself. It's a common tendency we all have to just look for things that fit an agenda, and then we miss a lot more evidence that would have given us a more complete picture.
 The 1840 book you quoted: A Treatise on the Chronology and the Prophetical Numbers of the Bible, in a letter addressed to William Cuninghame by Duncan MacDougal is available here: https://books.google.com/books?id=aOliAAAAcAAJ
So yes, it's true that others before Barbour and Russell had already mentioned possibilities for 1914 and dates not that far from it. By one estimate there had been a "[pseudo-]Biblical" prediction for at least half the individual years between 1850 and 1925. You can see some of this in B W Schulz book on Barbour, his other on ZWT, and some comments by Jonsson in GTR, too.
Russell doesn't appear to acknolwedge any of these others directly, but focuses his predictions on those related to William Miller. In fact Russell believed:
1,260 days of Daniel ended in 1799 1,290 days of Daniel ended in 1829 - because this is when William Miller's adventism got into full swing. 1,335 days of Daniel ended in 1874 - also because William Miller's 1844 date corresponded with the Jewish Advent of Jesus, but 1874 with the Christian Advent of "Christ" baptized and anointed (made Christ). As late as 1925 (Feb 15), the Watch Tower said:
"No doubt Mr. Miller was correct in locating 1844 as a Bible date."
Russell had said the following in Studies in the Scriptures; from the very first 1891 editions, on up to the 1927 editions:
Mr Miller's application of the three and a half times (1260 years) was practically the same as what we have just given . . . It was nevertheless the beginning of the right understanding of the prophecy; for after all, the 1260 period, which he saw correctly, was the key;
In 1881, Russell said:
. . . we believe that this much of this parable met its fulfillment in 1843 and 1844, when William Miller and others, Bible in hand, walked out by faith in its statements . . . . As the former movement in the parable had been represented by Miller and others, so to this second movement we give a similar application. A brother, Barbour of Rochester, was we believe, the chosen vessel of God through whom the "Midnight Cry" issued. . . . proving that the night of the parable was 30 years long, and that the morning was in 1873, and the Bridegroom due in the morning in 1874.
I should mention that just because something was disappointing and included mistakes, it didn't indicate to Russell that God wasn't behind the events and the dates. After all, I think the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem was a disappointment, too.
Also, one should note that it was a large majority of Russell's early influencers who had been associated with the Millerite movement: Jonas Wendell, George Storrs, George Stetson, N. H. Barbour, B. W. Keith, J. H. Paton, and H. B. Rice. This is why his vocabulary and topics and several doctrines continued to reflect Second Adventism for the rest of his life.