ComfortMyPeople

I really like the fact that you are trying to work it out for yourself.
Because I was always so skeptical of the accepted, secular chronology I thought it was important to "start from scratch" and work the whole thing out for myself. 
I think most Witnesses don't realize that ANY time we see a B.C.E. date in the WTS publications, it means that we are relying on SECULAR chronology.
Personally, I'm convinced that the Bible is sufficient on its own to keep us fully equipped, therefore without any need to rely on secular chronology, so I give no special credence or reliance to any specific years with a BCE date attached to them. Doesn't mean they can't be helpful in trying to figure out the order of events, but even here, those secular dates aren't necessary in order to understand the Bible, and figure out the order of Biblical events. 
And from a purely Biblical perspective we aren't going to get any definite mentions of an eclipse or some other astronomical event that is tied to a specific month and day and year of a specific king. Therefore there can be no BCE dates calculated from the Bible. 
In my opinion, there are two main stumbling blocks that always hamper any chronology discussion, and they are related:
Witnesses are told that we are defending Biblical chronology based on a pivotal ('absolute') date of 539 BCE and the Biblical 70 years.  When arguing with Witnesses, Non-Witnesses don't (or won't) admit that the most logical and common-sense understanding of the 70 years favors the WTS viewpoint. 

Yes. I think that's correct. There are no RULES against engaging in fornication. That doesn't mean it's not sinful, just as murder and theft and creating divisions and contentions are sinful.
No. Paul explained quite the opposite. 
(Romans 2:12-15) . . .For all those who sinned without law will also perish without law; but all those who sinned under law will be judged by law. For the hearers of law are not the ones righteous before God, but the doers of law will be declared righteous.  For when people of the nations, who do not have law, do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves.  They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, . . .
But Christians still end up being "doers" of the law by fulfilling the law without written rules, i.e., the "royal law" of Christ. They have the law written in their hearts (their true motivations). 
(James 2:8) . . .If, now, you carry out the royal law according to the scripture, “You must love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing quite well. 
 

By the way, we look at the decree in Acts 15 and say that because it was "guided by holy spirit" that it becomes some kind of "law" for Christians today. But don't we believe that Paul was also "guided by holy spirit" in writing Timothy?
Yet how many congregations make a list of widows 60 and over and base it on the requirements listed here?
(1 Timothy 5:9, 10) . . .A widow is to be put on the list if she is not less than 60 years old, was the wife of one husband,  having a reputation for fine works, if she raised children, if she practiced hospitality, if she washed the feet of holy ones, . . .
Was this one of those cases where you might think the Pauline decree to Timothy turned out not to be a wise thing to do?

Yes. Those principles do not become rules, however. When the Law is written on our hearts, we don't need rules of any kind.
The imposition of ANY rule is a kind of "judaizing."
There is no rule against fornication, there is no rule against eating blood. But we don't and won't do either, because we will continually want to know more about God and his love, and try to reflect it wherever possible. If we love God we would want to try to understand, as best as we are able, the Law to Noah and the Law to Moses. Even if we can't figure out all the details behind those laws, we will likely appear to be following rules to those on the outside, but our motivation will be a much higher motivation: love for God, his Son, and love for neighbor. Jesus spoke to actual Jews under Law and was already transitioning them toward this new teaching, showing them that you will never murder because you will work on removing hate, you will never commit adultery or steal because you will work on not even desiring what would take away from your neighbor/brother.  To someone on the outside you might seem like a much stricter rule-follower than they are, but you won't even be thinking about any rules.
However, you are right that a congregation is going to set rules that make sense to keeping order and making it possible for Christians to fellowship, and they are based on mutual agreement. These are mundane things, however, and have nothing to do with the New Covenant or salvation. A congregation can decide through mutual agreement to have a gathering on Sunday at 10am, or Wednesday at 8pm, or Saturday at midnight. Older men and overseers can help preside over such decisions, wisely, and their love and respect for the flock will help them avoid the decision to meet at midnight on Saturday. It would be a hardship on the congregation, and they would waste their hard work preparing to teach when there will be no one to hear. But those "rules" might even claim to be based on Mosaic principles, as we used to emphasize for our 3 conventions a year. They are still mundane, like the "widows on the list who are least 60 years old" in 1 Timothy. 
It's hard for me to imagine it that way. Efficiency is not any part of the purpose of the New Covenant. During a time of transition the Old Covenant served as a model, precedent, and teacher -- but it doesn't make those things a part of the New Covenant. Notice:
(Galatians 3:23-25) . . .However, before the faith arrived, we were being guarded under law, being handed over into custody, looking to the faith that was about to be revealed.  So the Law became our guardian leading to Christ, so that we might be declared righteous through faith.  But now that the faith has arrived, we are no longer under a guardian.

Thanks @scholar JW for a succinct and clear summary of your position on the 20-year gap (several pages back).
MY SUMMARY below adds 4 or 5 items that I didn't spell out in posts yet, but the rest are a subset of the points from posts already in this thread.
The Watchtower publications depend on SECULAR chronology to be able to attach a BCE date to any Bible event. There are no BCE or CE (AD) dates in the Bible anywhere. Per the current Watchtower Library going back to 1950 for the Watchtower and the 1970's for other publications: there are 11,857 separate references to BCE dates in the current "Watchtower Library" and the MAJORITY of them are for the three dates: 539, 537 and 607.  Every time we ever read in a WTS publication the term "B.C.E." it means the WTS has depended on SECULAR chronology.
The WTS fully accepts the SECULAR chronology indicating Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 BCE. The exact same SECULAR chronology indicates that the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar was 586 BCE. The exact same SECULAR Chronology indicates that the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar was 587 BCE. The Bible associates Jerusalem's destruction with the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar The Bible also associates Jerusalem's destruction with the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar The Bible associates both years with this event, so SECULAR scholars must choose between 587 and 586 The Bible's ambiguity here is "cleverly" reassigned from the Bible to SECULAR scholars so that it can repeatedly be used as a means to discredit scholars -- so that both dates can be dismissed Discrediting scholars feeds into the repeated idea that 539 is now part of Bible chronology but 587/586 is only SECULAR chronology This allows the WTS to keep the original theory promoted by Barbour and Russell that all one has to do is go back 70 years from 536 (now 539*/538/537) to get the destruction of Jerusalem in 606 (now 607) and both of these dates can be promoted as BIBLE chronology. Any attempt to show the fallacy of the argument, or the evidence against the interpretation, can now be associated with choosing SECULAR experts over the BIBLE, and not recognizing that the SECULAR "wisdom of the world is foolishness with God" This tradition/theory/interpretation that we now call "BIBLE chronology" now requires that ALL the evidence for the SECULAR chronology that we accept for 539 must otherwise be rejected in order to support 607. Therefore the WTS must add 20 years to ALL the chronology evidence BEFORE 539 and not touch any dates from the same evidence AFTER 539. Unfortunately for the WTS theory, the Bible locks in the length of the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar to 43 years, and in support of external evidence for 539, the WTS is partially reliant on SECULAR inscriptions referring to the length of the reign of the last king conquered by Cyrus in 539 (the 17 years of Nabonidus) That would mean that the 20-year gap must be theorized to fit within a period known to be only 6 years long according to ALL the existing chronological evidence of the period (from the exact same set of evidence accepted for 539) The need to turn that 6-year period into a 24-year period becomes an awkward quest because of the inscriptions, kings lists, and astronomy tablets that give consistent evidence that there is not even a one-year gap anywhere in the period. NOT PRESENTED YET: The evidence from the TENS of THOUSANDS of mundane business documents is just as damaging to the WTS theory. These small clay tablets are spread throughout EACH and EVERY year of the entire documented period from Nebuchadnezzar's father, Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-Merodach, Nabonidus, Cyrus, etc. They even exist for EACH and EVERY year for the short reign of the two kings in those 6 years where the WTS needs to place the 20-year gap. NOT PRESENTED YET: There are business tablets for EVERY year of the known reigns of EACH king, and sometimes thousands of tablets for some of those years, but still absolutely NONE to show evidence for any of the theorized gap of 20 years. (Out of say 50,000 existing tablets, we should therefore expect about 20,000 additional tablets to cover those years, yet not one of those "20,000" missing tablets has shown up. (The WTS has proposed that evidence may exist but has just not been discovered yet.) Therefore, while 100% of the tablet evidence supports the known chronology, there is still ZERO tablet evidence for any possible longer reigns or additional reigns for anyone during the period. Worse yet for the WTS theory, there are even connecting tablets that give us the transition between each king and the next king which makes the gap theory impossible, according to all the evidence. NOT PRESENTED YET: There is even a subset of these business documents all related to the same "banking institution" that provides a separate chronology of transitioning "bank presidents" throughout the same entire period. They provide the exact same connected, relative chronology as the Babylonian king lists, the astronomy tablets, the official Babylonian chronicles, and other inscriptions. NOT PRESENTED YET: The WTS admits that the Babylonians were able to predict eclipses based on various nearly-18-year lunar cycles. If they weren't using an extremely accurate calendar they couldn't have done this. Any currently undocumented gap in the chronology would have completely thrown off their ability to predict eclipses. To add "support" for the 20-year gap theory, the WTS quotes from experts about evidence from astronomy and inscriptions and often adds (with no explanation) the WTS chronology in parentheses or brackets in very close context to the quotations from experts and scholarly references and encyclopedias. Sometimes even adding the bracketed WTS chronology within the quotation marks from the expert sources, giving the impression that there is expert scholarly support for WTS chronology. To add further "support" for the 20-year gap, the ACTUAL evidence that has been consistently supported and presented for the last 150 plus years by HUNDREDS of other scholars, is often simply called to "Carl Olof Jonsson's evidence" or "COJ's evidence." Because COJ was disfellowshipped for presenting the evidence already supported by hundreds of others, it "cleverly" leads the average JW to believe that SECULAR evidence is apostate evidence. (Except when the WTS uses the same set of evidence for 539.)  To add further "support" for the 20-year gap theory, the WTS made use of Rolf Furuli's book in two articles in the Watchtower in 2011  (*** w11 11/1 p. 25) claiming that some of the lunar data on a tablet dated to a specific year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign is a better fit for a different year of his reign, 20 years earlier. (Same idea had been tried for a different reign in a 1969 Watchtower, *** w69 3/15 pp. 185-186) Furuli's ideas about this tablet and the WTS focus on it has tended to imply to that this tablet (VAT 4956) is somehow all-important to the secular chronology. But it is only one piece of many that consistently point EXACTLY to the 587 date for the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar and EXACTLY to the 586 date for the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar. NOT PRESENTED YET: Furuli's ideas about the tablet have been thoroughly debunked and shown to contain numerous amateurish errors. Furthermore the book inadvertently contains evidence against itself which indicates the real strength of the evidence against the WTS use of "607." Russell did not directly use the 7 times of Daniel 4 to prove 606 (now 607) and indicated that methods using the 7 times (based more on Leviticus, not Daniel) were inferior methods to the use of "God's dates" (meaning counting forward 40 years from 1874). The use of (and definition of) what happened in 1914 changed after 1914, and the predicted fulfillments were moved to 1915, then 1918, then 1925. The Watchtower even temporarily used the expression "End of the Gentile Times in 1915." After the slippage and failures of expectations, the only useful prediction that remained was that the "Gentile Times Ended in 1914." But this was not about Jesus' invisible parousia (still 1874) or Jesus' invisible enthronement as King (still 1878) but was an expression directly related to the visible Zionist movement in Palestine. After an adjusted emphasis on Zionism AFTER 1914, along with a new emphasis on on Jesus' coming/arriving/returning to his temple for judgment in 1918, Rutherford finally dropped the Zionist connection to the "End of the Gentile Times" around 1929, and 1874/1878 was also soon dropped so that both the parousia and the kingship both were now associated with 1914. And the Gentile nations merely lost their "lease" to rule, even though they were now ruling more powerfully than ever.

The point of the thread is the self-imposed 20-year gap in the Watchtower's chronology schema. This discussion about 1914 is definitely related even if it looks out of place. I think it's good to see just how far one needs to stretch things to make it look like SOMETHING happened in 1914 that might be visible to the world AND that supposedly gives the WTS bragging rights for having predicted it in advance. 
The only thing we have left of all the predictions that Russell made is not about the War, but simply the expression he used: that it would be "The End of the Gentile Times." To Russell that meant what it said: the complete and final end of the national (gentile) governments. Originally that they would be brought to nothing, and no nations or governments would exist after October 1914 because the ONLY legitimate government on earth after 1914 would be a Jewish government out of Palestine. The timeframe kept slipping and the WTS gave up on that idea completely around 1929/30. 
Now the entire expression "End of the Gentile Times" has drifted so far away from its original meaning that it has nothing to do with Gentiles vs Jews at all. And the Gentiles don't stop ruling after all. There are more Gentile nations now than ever! And they are more powerful now than ever! And the "Jews" are now identified spiritually as the remnant of spiritual Israel, and yet they somehow get trampled and made captives after 1914 (especially 1918-1919). Some are even killed and put in prison, especially in the 1940's.
So all that's left of that expression now is empty: the nations still rule even though their "time" has ended, but they have lost their "lease" to rule, but they aren't even aware of that. 

Just to be clear then. I absolutely do NOT liken the conflict between Arabs and Jews to currently applicable Biblical prophecy. Jesus said "nation would fight against nation" but the end is not yet. In other words not even world wars were a sign of the end. All nations fighting other nations is just another sign that we are living in a world that cannot govern itself and needs Jehovah's Kingdom as the ONLY permanent solution. Conflicts between nations provide an opportunity for Christians to prove their neutrality and to prove that they do not sacrifice lives to the god of this world by supporting wars and divisive politics. But there is no specific spiritual significance to conflicts between natural, physical Jews today and any other nations. Biblical lessons, yes, specific currently applicable prophecy, no, imo.
And I hope I never try.
Good question. He definitely examined Zionism, repeatedly.
You should read the following book if you haven't aleady:

As far as Russell's general involvement in politics, I agree it wasn't as steeped as Rutherford's, but it was there. Did you read C.T.Russell's open letter to President McKinley (and openly racist, too) about how Japan should get the Philippine Islands because Filipinos are basically lazy, and the Japanese are industrious?
Anyway, here's the Watchtower's answer to your question in the 1975 Yearbook. The last paragraph is also my position on the prophetic angle you mentioned.
*** yb75 pp. 53-54 Part 1—United States of America ***
Then, again, it might have been New York city’s noted Hippodrome Theatre, where Russell addressed a large Jewish audience on Sunday, October 9, 1910. Regarding that discourse, the New York American of October 10, 1910, said, in part: “The unusual spectacle of 4,000 Hebrews enthusiastically applauding a Gentile preacher, after having listened to a sermon he addressed to them concerning their own religion, was presented at the Hippodrome yesterday afternoon, where Pastor Russell, the famous head of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, conducted a most unusual service.” Scores of rabbis and teachers were present. “There were no preliminaries,” said the newspaper. “Pastor Russell, tall, erect and white-bearded, walked across the stage without introduction, raised his hand, and his double quartette from the Brooklyn Tabernacle sang the hymn, ‘Zion’s Glad Day.’” As reported, eventually the audience ‘warmed up’ to the speaker. Next there was applause, finally enthusiastic response. The discourse over, Russell signaled again and the choir “raised the quaint, foreign-sounding strains of the Zion hymn, ‘Our Hope,’ one of the masterpieces of the eccentric East Side poet Imber.” The effect? This, according to the press account: “The unprecedented incident of Christian voices singing the Jewish anthem came as a tremendous surprise. For a moment the Hebrew auditors could scarcely believe their ears. Then, making sure it was their own hymn, they first cheered and clapped with such ardor that the music was drowned out, and then, with the second verse, joined in by hundreds. At the height of the enthusiasm over the dramatic surprise he prepared, Pastor Russell walked off the stage and the meeting ended with the end of the hymn.”
Times have changed, and so have Christian views of Biblical prophecies once thought to apply to natural Jews in our day. With increased light from God, his people have discerned that such words foretell good things for the spiritual “Israel of God,” Jesus Christ’s anointed followers. (Rom. 9:6-8, 30-33; 11:17-32; Gal. 6:16) But we have been reviewing the early twentieth century, and this is how things were in those days.
 

While this is sometimes true, there has been a lot of leeway given to what is considered "academic use" in terms of discussion forums. Especially if we are commenting on the contents. The Watchtower Society, for example, has both won and lost in different cases attempting to keep people from posting and/or discussing copyrighted content.
I think you are aware, however, that it neglects the author's rights even more to post their work without attribution, or to post it in such a way that it makes it appear the author said something they didn't. And this happens more often when the poster assumes something about the contents, but doesn't try to comment on the actual contents or the context. 
And then the Gentile British Empire up until about 1947. You can read in old Watchtowers that Rutherford thought Britain was the "disgusting thing standing where it ought not" because they were standing on soil intended for Zionists.

I assume you know that as an organization we are no longer Zionists. You have claimed to be mostly supportive of the Governing Body, and you are clearly if not rabidly supportive of certain doctrines. Russell's prophecies and predictions about Zionism were copied from fellow Zionist supporters. They were right. As expected by Herzl and others, Zionism did "put into practical shape the proposal for the reorganization of a Jewish state in Palestine." And Russell was right that it would bear no perfect fruit before October 1914 -- the full end of the Gentile Times. 
Obviously has not born perfect fruit yet either. A lot of rotten fruit. Yet October was supposed to be the "FULL END" of Gentile rulership. But Gentile Rulership continues. I think you were making the point that Britain and Turkey were "non-Jew" therefore Gentile nations. Russell said Israel would go on increasing while the other nations crumbled into chaos. At first this would happen in October 1914. Then it would happen between October 1914 and October 1915. Finally it would happen within a few months or perhaps even a few years after. Rutherford still bought into it in spite of his anti-Semitic statements against the Jewish race. He thought Russell's prophecies would come true but just delayed until 1917, then 1918, then 1925.
Have you read Rutherford's 1925 book "Comfort for the Jews?"
At any rate. It's all been dropped, and for reasons that were becoming painfully obvious between 1914 and 1925, officially dropped right around 1930. And no one wanted to go support these predictions again after 1947 either. You are the first Witness I know of that still pushes the Zionist predictions as something to support. 
 

I agree. These are Gentile nations. And you have provided multiple sources now showing how these Gentile nations ae still subjugating Israel. Israel has been relegated to a puppet state that does the bidding of the United States. It has recently reared its own ugliness and has more openly done exactly what that last book Wistrich's book claimed were "scurrilous accusations" that Israel would never do because they are too morally superior. As an aside, the book also unwittingly  exposed the moral emptiness of nations like the United States and Britain. (Several examples, but just to give one, the book claims that Hamas or like groups say that Israel threatens terrorism with weapons like "depleted uranium" so that Palestinians die more slowly and painfully. The book shows attempts to appeal to the American and Western mindset to make sure it remains on Israel's side by calling such accusations scurrilous, yet the author likely didn't know that the US has supported and manufactured such shells, and the US and Britain recently approved shipments of them to Ukraine to fight Russians.)
There has been no moral high ground in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, historically or currently. I think Russell meant well because he didn't know that Zionists are often radicalized. They are religious fundamentalist and are supporters and exporters of terror, just as is the majority of Israel at the moment.
Israel, currently, is a failed state. If not propped up with billions of dollars and promises of protection by the U.S. its economy and "place" in the region would collapse. 

It's still best practice and discussion forum etiquette to identify the sources you copy from. This makes it easier for readers to recognize the context and perspective of the source. In this case, yes, the source is easy to find as A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, by Robert S. Wistrich · 2010. 
This book is probably more damaging to your premise than the last one you quoted. It is selective and biased, but it is a good source for understanding the hateful, anti-semitic underbelly of several fundamentalist and terrorist anti-Israeli ideologies. It shows how whole, entire nations surrounding Israel are constantly fighting and killing and trampling the rights of Israelis in Palestine, and have been ESPECIALLY SINCE 1914. It picks the worst of the racist rhetoric from Muslim national leaders and militant group leaders not just from Hamas and Hezbollah, etc., but from "respected" national and political and religious leaders in the region. The book shows how a lot of this is echoed, not just in the region, but those taking sides all around the world. 
If one needed a textbook to show how Jerusalem and Israel continue to be trampled on by the nations, especially since 1914, then this would be an ugly place to start, but it makes the point unequivocally. 
That's good advice. I've seen people who think they can do something like a Google search on words like "Israel and 1914" and then immediately interpret a snippet from a returned source as if it supports their opinions. But then, when one reads it carefully, or reads a few sentences of context, they could easily see that it actually debunks their premises. That's why it's always best to try to get a deeper understanding before attempting to criticize and assert a false premise. It's excellent advice for me, and for all of us. Thanks.

LOL.
Reminds me of the words of a recent commentator here:
 
I think you just did a pretty good job yourself demolishing your own premise. Recall that your challenge was basically to disprove that the Jews were liberated from Palestine at the "End of the Gentile Times" in 1914:
So now you quote (without attribution, btw) British Jewry, Zionism, and the Jewish State, 1936-1956, by Stephan E. C. Wendehorst · 2012. By highlighting the words "British in 1914" you have apparently misread the sentence. He is not saying anything about the Jews fighting in Palestine relative to 1914. He is quoting a letter from Ivan Greenberg to the London Times dated May 23, 1947. In it he, Greenberg, is saying that the British fought against British subjugation and British national destruction in WW1 and WW2 (1914 and 1939), therefore the Jews should be given the same opportunity and support to continue fighting, even though much of their fighting was called Jewish "terrorism" in 1947 (and beyond, even up until today). Also, that Jewish persons in Britain still felt pressure from Britain not to side with the Jewish "terrorists" in Palestine for fear of reprisals in Britain. Look more carefully at the entire paragraph or the entire section starting with "Revisionist Zionism" starting on page 156) and you and other readers here will be able to see this:

In other words, the Jews, especially the British Jews, still felt under the subjugation of Britain and could not speak or act freely. There goes your supposed "freedom for the Jews in Palestine at the end of the Gentile Times in 1914." Jews in Palestine were still fighting against the British in 1947. In fact the entire rejuvenation for Zionism was the extreme subjugation of Jews by European nations, especially Germany, over the previous recent years since 1939. This entire book gives details on a perspective only summarized blandly by statements like the following:
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel
Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.
Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946 . . . . Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.
Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. 
The details show that there has continued to be trampling and subjugation by other nations over Israel and Jerusalem. History tells us that not just a few, but MILLIONS fell by the sword, and Jerusalem continues to be trampled on by the nations. Israel is little more than a client of the US and sometimes Britain. A supposedly "safe," non-democratic national military base, weapons testers and purchasers of US manufacturers, and an appeasement to religiously fanatic Zionists and Christian fundamentalists.
So tell me again how this was fulfilled in 1914:
(Luke 21:24) . . .And they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled.
 

LOL. Of course, I was confused about why you asked:  . . . 
If you didn't think he was confused, I wondered why did you ask about "the reason for Dr. Wiseman's confusion"?
At any rate, I'm not worried about it, and I'm no longer confused. LOL.
Good. Absolutely. Question them all. Verify what you can directly from evidence or photos of the evidence. (I took hundreds of my own photos in London, Paris, and Berlin.) Get multiple translations. You can even go so far as to look up at least some of the cuneiform for yourself if it bears on some questionable or controversial difference of opinion in translation. And it's a lot easier than most people think to double-check the readings on some of the astronomical tablets if you work from trusted translations. And for the record, I have no problem with the translations that Furuli used, but then, he did not offer any of his own anyway, but copied the translations provided by others prior to his work. 

I'll gladly take the challenge. See if you (or anyone you know) can prove that the Jews were liberated from Palestine in 1914. Done.
For good measure, also see if you (or anyone you know) can prove that no Jew "fell by the edge of the sword" at the behest of any nation after 1914. 
Decades prior to WW 1, Russell said that 1914 would be bringing an END to the time of trouble not the beginning. It was printed in Studies in the Scriptures and in the Watchtower magazine.
*** "Can it be Delayed Until 1914?", Zion's Watch Tower, July 15, 1894. ***
We see no reason for changing the figures—nor could we change them if we would, They are, we believe, God's dates, not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of the trouble.
So he predicted the OPPOSITE of World War! What kind of World War is the END of a time of trouble and not the BEGINNING of a time of trouble?
And that mistaken prediction was only 20 years prior to 1914, not 40. It wasn't until the big prophetic errors that Russell made around 1904, 10 years prior, that Russell also decided the entire harvest period would need to be a complete 40 years of relative peace from 1874 to 1914 to preach the gospel, and THEN the world's institutions and all kingdoms would collapse in October 1914 or within a few months afterwards. 
Of course, Rutherford moved that 40-year "harvest' that was once 1874 to 1914, and moved it to 1878 to 1918.
*** "The Concluding Work of the Harvest", The Watch Tower, October 1, 1917, pg 6148-6149. ***
"and the evidence is very conclusive that it is true, then we have only a few months in which to labor before the great night settles down when no man can work."
*** The Finished Mystery. Studies in the Scriptures. Vol. 7: International Bible Students Association. 1917 ***
In one short year, 1917–1918, the vast and complicated system of sectarianism reaches its zenith of power, only to be suddenly dashed into oblivion . . . . One large part of the adherents of ecclesiasticism will die from pestilence and famine.

I don't know what you mean. Dr. Wiseman didn't say he was confused did he?
Yes. Of course it's true that mistakes pointed out in "past claims by scholars" should discredit the credibility of those scholars who made those past claims. That's always true that mistakes can discredit credibility, but not always.
Your question is more likely asking about when current scholars point out mistakes from the past. In that case, does it discredit the credibility of those current scholars when pointing out those past mistakes by others (such as scribes from 2,500 years ago, or even other scholars from 10 to 1,000 years ago). And if that's the question then it does not necessarily discredit their own credibility, unless of course, they are pointing out irrelevant mistakes needlessly, or especially if they are merely replacing those past mistakes with their own current mistakes.
But I don't see Dr Wiseman doing anything wrong here, and he does not claim there were any scribal mistakes in this context. He does mention some mistakes made by some past scholars but nothing substantial to this discussion. 
So my take on this is: Always question, always be skeptical and verify as best we can. Never trust our own understanding either. All of us can be wrong. All of us fall short. The purpose of discussion is to look for ways in which I might be wrong so that I can correct my wrong opinions.
Yes. Of course, see how that works out for you!! LOL. Only trust illogical unstrustworthy non-scholars, if you wish. LOL. 
In reality, you should not put TOO much trust in either non-scholars or scholars either. Evidence that you can see for yourself should be looked at and validated yourself as much as possible. A lot of evidence that people think is too difficult to check out for themselves is extremely simple and we have nothing to be afraid of. As Watchtower publications have long suggested for other contexts:
*** tr chap. 2 p. 13 par. 5 ***
We need to examine, not only what we personally believe, but also what is taught by any . . .  are they based on the traditions of men? If we are lovers of the truth, there is nothing to fear from such an examination. 
 

Thanks again for the soapbox setup regarding 1914. LOL.
Scripture says no one knows the day and the hour or the times and the seasons of Jesus' return. "For you do not know when the time will come." Also, scripture says that it wasn't for us to know and that we would need to stay on the watch for his return, by being always ready even for a completely unexpected visitation, like a thief in the night, not waiting for signs. Thieves in the night do not put up signs announcing their visit.
So the only proper way to keep on the watch is to always be prepared, watch our conduct, have faith. Thinking there might be an advance sign keeps people from being fully prepared until they see the sign. Christians need to be prepared BEFORE the sign appear. As Jesus said, when it is too late to even go back into your house to grab something, "THEN the sign will appear --IN HEAVEN!!"
But first a defense for anyone who might be interested in the topic just for the sake of knowledge.
Some people like puzzles. Some people like history. Most of the heavy lifting and most of the very detailed and tedious work has been done by hundreds, even thousands of people who had never heard of 1914. Many of the Greek historians who wanted to make a history of say, Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Troy, Peloponnesia, or Alexander the Great also wanted to see just how exactly they could puzzle together the number of years between certain events, exactly how long ago something happened.
Just saying "Year 10 of King so-and-so" wasn't good enough if that king was so far back in time that you weren't sure if your "Kings List" or "archon list" was complete or accurate enough. If there was even one inaccurate listing or missing king from the list then the chain of accuracy was broken. Longer eras were tried. Attaching events to a certain numbered 4-year Olympiad was tried. Ptolemy and others realized that you could go back into Babylonian and Assyrian times and double-check their Kings Lists against actual astronomical readings that he could double-check against repeating cycles of eclipses and even repeated planetary motion against certain constellations. It was fortunate that the Babylonians had astrologers who took such meticulous note of such things. After double-checking, it turned out he could trust the Babylonian Kings Lists, just like today where the Watchtower trusts the same Kings List that Ptolemy quoted, in order to say that Cyrus in 539 is a trusted, anchored, pivotal date.
Full disclosure, the WTS only trusts the list from Cyrus on, NOT BEFORE. And there's also one place where the WTs doesn't like it again AFTER Cyrus, during the reign of Artaxerxes:
*** it-1 p. 182 Artaxerxes ***
Artaxerxes Longimanus, the son of Xerxes I, is the king referred to at Ezra 7:1-28 and Nehemiah 2:1-18; 13:6. Whereas most reference works give his accession year as 465 B.C.E., there is sound reason for placing it in 475 B.C.E.
The "sound reason" is again (just like for 607 from 587 BCE) a prophetic interpretation that we would like to have work a certain way, and the Watchtower interpretation doesn't work with the evidenced chronology.
 
But even today, many people will get angry if you say that the Civil War started in 1841 or that the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1756, or that, nearly half-way around the world, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand happened in 1894 or that Lenin's Revolution in Russia was in 1897. Or that Jesus was born around 22 BC. Some people are sticklers for accuracy and don't like false claims even when it really doesn't matter all that much to our own family and pets. 
And for that matter, saying that something happened in 1914 when no one at the time actually noticed whatever it was that happened at the time, also has no real effect on us today. If the Watchtower had claimed that whatever happened invisibly then, had actually happened in 1934, or if we still claimed that it had happened in 1874, there would be no material difference to anything else we believe in. Changing the starting dates, and then adding an undefinable and fairly flexible "overlapping generation" to it, means we don't really even have an expectation that is specifically tied to that year any more.
So the only real point for most Witnesses then, is to be able to brag that the WTS was able to predict that SOMETHING big would happen in 1914. And even though it wasn't anything like what the WTS predicted, no one can deny that SOMETHING big did happen that year. 
So the real point, pretty much the only remaining point, must be for some kind of gnostic bragging rights. Boasting about how our own esoteric and convoluted method of interpreting "hidden knowledge" proves we are about the closest thing to "prophets" that one might expect these days.
This is what Russell apparently had in mind in the first thing he ever published back before he started the Watchtower magazine. In 1876 he said regarding 1914:
We believe that God has given the key. We believe He doeth nothing but he revealeth it unto His servants. . . . But, some one will say, “If the Lord intended that we should know, He would have told us plainly and distinctly how long.” But, no, brethren, He never does so. The Bible is to be a light to God’s children;–to the world, foolishness. Many of its writings are solely for our edification upon whom the ends of the world are come. As well say that God should have put the gold on top instead of in the bowels of the earth it would be too common; it would lose much of its value. So with truth; but, “to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom."
In fact, look what was added to the Aid book and Insight book which were supposed to be all-purpose, general-use Bible Dictionaries. Even though the predictions about 1914 turned out not to be true, and even though a sensationalist newspaper at the time made a story that falsely misrepresented those predictions, the Insight book provides the following bit of boasting:
*** it-1 p. 135 Appointed Times of the Nations ***
“Seven times,” according to this count, would equal 2,520 days. That a specific number of days may be used in the Bible record to represent prophetically an equivalent number of years can be seen by reading the accounts at Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6. Only by applying the formula there expressed of “a day for a year” to the “seven times” of this prophecy can the vision of Daniel chapter 4 have significant fulfillment beyond the day of now extinct Nebuchadnezzar, as the evidence thus far presented gives reason to expect. They therefore represent 2,520 years.
It is a historical fact worth noting that, on the basis of the points and evidence above presented, the March 1880 edition of the Watch Tower magazine identified the year 1914 as the time for the close of “the appointed times of the nations” (and the end of the lease of power granted the Gentile rulers). This was some 34 years before the arrival of that year and the momentous events it initiated. In the August 30, 1914, edition of The World, a leading New York newspaper at that time, a feature article in the paper’s Sunday magazine section commented on this as follows: “The terrific war outbreak in Europe has fulfilled an extraordinary prophecy. For a quarter of a century past, through preachers and through press, the ‘International Bible Students’ . . . have been proclaiming to the world that the Day of Wrath prophesied in the Bible would dawn in 1914.”
 
So it has really just become a roundabout way of bragging and hinting at least subliminally that the WTS is a kind of "prophet:"
(Amos 3:7) . . .For the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will not do a thing Unless he has revealed his confidential matter to his servants the prophets.

If he died in 609 BCE, as Pharaoh Necho was passing north through Megiddo, then he was born around 648 BCE. Josiah became king at 8 years of age in about 640/639 and reigned 31 years until 609.
TMI:
Apparently, Josiah's wife was pregnant with Johanan when Josiah was somewhere between 8 and 12 years old. Johanan never became king, but Josiah's other 3 sons all became kings of Judah. 
His second son, Jehoiakim/Eliakim was born in Josiah's 6th year as king (634 BCE), meaning when Josiah was about 14, so Josiah most likely fathered the child his second son when he was 13. 
When Josiah was about 16 (632 BCE), his third son Jehoahaz/Shallum was born.
About the 22nd year of his reign, Mattaniah/Zedekiah was born, around 618 BCE.
Zedekiah would be about 9 years old when his father died, and very shortly afterwards was himself made king around 609 BCE
It's hard to see why someone being born in 618 might influence a scribe to think his reign concluded 11 years later. You are evidently thinking it's possible that some scribe somewhere mixed up his birth-year with his first year of reign, counting 11 years from the wrong date. This seems a little less likely to me when you think about the method they used for counting years. It wasn't a matter of mixing up numbers like 618, 607, 597, 586, because counting calendar years didn't use numbers like that. You merely added up the length of all official kings' reigns between "king A' and "king B" and then used expression like "in the 3rd year of king A. . . " or in "10th year of king B." to add or subtract for the exact number of years. 
I merely acknowledge that you were saying it was possible that historical evidence points to a different time frame from 587, and you say my assumption is incorrect but then go on to say almost the exact same thing I just said. So I guess I missed what part of my assumption was incorrect.
It sounds like you are not saying that Nabopolassar can also be called Nebuchadnezzar, but that perhaps there was a co-regency of a certain Nebuchadnezzar of the same regnal length as Nabopolassar's or that Nabopolassar's regnal year numbers were used during a time when this Nebuchadnezzar was also a king (or effectively the king from the Biblical perspective?) during that same 19th year.  
There were others named Nebuchadnezzar, especially after the first "great" Nebuchadnezzar from 400 years earlier. The name according to Wiseman was little used elsewhere (if at all) by others in the second millennium, meaning prior to the first Nebuchadnezzar. But he believes that Nabopolassar, once established in his throne, thought it good to name his first son Nebuchadnezzar as a kind of throwback to that first Nebuchadnezzar to remind Babylonians of the old classical "dynasty". But others had used the name, since 'Neb the First' or names similar enough to swap with it. 
The other Nebuchadn(r)ezzar, however, was NOT the son of Nabopolassar as you say. You must have read it wrong. That would mean Nebuchadnezzar had a brother named Nebuchadnezzar. Note that Wiseman says that Nebuchadn(r)ezzar II had a brother named Nabuzerusabsi, named in a document almost NINETY YEARS AFTER the governor of Uruk (also named Nabuzerusabsi). It was that Uruk governor from 650 BC (not 640) who also had a brother named Nebuchadrezzar. 

according to:

which I didn't look up to double-check.
Nabopolassar's son, Nabuzerusabsi, would have been born well before 605 and so was already at least 44 when he was mentioned on a tablet in the year 562 BCE. The brother of the governor of Uruk's back around 650 would have been nearly a century earlier, and this would be, not impossible, but very difficult to see as "a Nebuchadnezzar" co-ruling with Nabopolassar, whose reign started in about 626 BCE. Not because it's impossible based on the dates, but because we have so much trivial information known about even obscure people from these years. Even people who reigned only a few months, even people who tried to usurp the kingship, and even details about co-rulers from Assyrian times just a few years prior to Nabopolassar. So it seems odd that we wouldn't have details about a brother of a governor co-ruling at the time history assigns solely to Nabopolassar. 

It's possible that you mean the observation doesn't make any big deal about the physical destruction of Jerusalem at that particular time. Perhaps you are thinking that there could have been another point at which Jerusalem was considered already devastated. Perhaps this might cover a potential 20 year gap if we consider a scribal error. Perhaps it's related to the so-called correction to a king's young enthronement. 
Before you give away more details than you are ready, I wonder if the following verse does not give the theory a big problem:
(Ezekiel 33:21) . . .At length in the 12th year, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month of our exile, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said: “The city has been struck down!”
Although some might consider the BCE years attached to the event to be controversial, it does indicate that they are in the 12th year of an exile that was so great as to be named "our exile." The only exile the Bible gives the largest number to was the exile in the 7th/8th year of Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 52) which puts this 12th  in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar. That 12 year gap (11 if using a non-accession style of counting) is accounted for perfectly in the description of the city being struck down in Jeremiah, 2 Chron, 2 Kings, etc.
I suppose one could say something like Sweeney is saying, that Jerusalem was effectively under Babylonian control as early as 605, and perhaps some kind of destruction accompanied what was done in this particular year. I would have a lot of trouble fitting Jeremiah's time related statements into this however. I do see a lot of the coincidences you have noticed. (e.g. 607 is not the 19th year of Nebu-, but it is in fact the 19th year of Nabo-. And the 20 year gaps are interesting. And the coincidence of the 37th year mentioned with respect to Jehoiachin and the accession year of Evil-Merodach, when the infamous tablet also concerns year 37. Don't know what anyone can make of that one though.)
 

I agree with that too. In fact, I think that when you consider everything that Jeremiah, Daniel, Chronicles/Ezra, Isaiah and Zechariah say about the term "70 years" it does give us a way to tie any of the "loose" pieces together in a reasonable fashion. 
I need to ask you first: When do you think Zedekiah (Mattanyahu) was born? If we use the dating system that puts Josiah's death in 609 by Necho's army at Megiddo, and we believe that Josiah was about 39 at his death, born around 648 and put on the throne in 640, at a very young age, then this makes Zedekiah born (618/617) when Josiah was 30-ish, very reasonable, for a fourth son in those days. That also puts Zedekiah on the throne from around 597 to 586 using this chronology. So he'd be around 21 or so. Does that sound about right to you? 

I'm sure you know that the BCE date 537 for Cyrus 2nd year is almost as well attested as Nebuchadnezzar's 19th or 18th.
But it's not attested to at all as the end of a 70-year period of exile. Ezra says the Jews were released by a decree in the first year of Cyrus. The Insight book admits that Bible writers sometimes used a non-accession year method, so that this could have referred to the idea that Cyrus immediately decreed the Jews to be free in 539. That's the actual year that you agree is the year Cyrus conquered Babylon, right?
So according to the Bible it could be 539 when the Jews were decreed to be free. And therefore when they got back to their homeland in the 7th month of 538, not 537.
(Ezra 3:1) . . .When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites were in their cities. . .
Does this supposed contention between 538 and 537 perhaps mean that you should ignore both dates and say it was really in 557? Hmmm. That's what you do with the supposed contention for Nebuchadnezzar's reign.
In fact that idea of 539 for the decree and 538 for getting back home is a much better Biblical fit to what Chronicles says:
(2 Chronicles 36:20, 21) . . .He carried off captive to Babylon those who escaped the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia began to reign, to fulfill Jehovah’s word spoken by Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.
It's pretty obvious that the kingdom of Persia began to reign in 539 BCE not 537 BCE. The Bible says nothing about the 70 years having to wait until they got all the way back to their homeland anyway. And we know that many of them never went home at all, or waited for many more years. 
Of course, 538 instead of your "celebrated" date makes the most sense here even if Ezra didn't say it. Unless you think ALL the Jews were lazy and didn't really want to get back home when they were freed until nearly 24 months after Cyrus conquered Babylon. 

it's pretty obvious that the Bible clearly states it was Cyrus 1st year, which you agree is 538, but another year is sacrificed to the altar of 607 so it had to be changed from the most logical agreed upon date 538, to 537. It really tells me that there is no respect for the Bible's dates. For the "idolized" Watchtower scholars they are satisfied with just a set of arbitrary dates chosen on both ends of the redefined 70 years, so that 1914 will still works.
 And yet it's not used as an anchor point going backwards because the same data and evidence that made 539 a so-called anchor date is thrown out the window immediately so that a 20 year gap is theorized to be in their somewhere, else a special interpretation for 1914 won't work. And then the same thing happens going forward hardly 100 years later, and the WTS needs to add 10 years to the evidenced chronology for another WTS interpretation to work: 
*** it-1 p. 182 Artaxerxes ***
Artaxerxes Longimanus, the son of Xerxes I, is the king referred to at Ezra 7:1-28 and Nehemiah 2:1-18; 13:6. Whereas most reference works give his accession year as 465 B.C.E., there is sound reason for placing it in 475 B.C.E.
Also, you continue to posit that the idea of two Biblically conflicting dates produces contentiousness among scholars, and therefore you are willing to dismiss both candidates. Yet the Watchtower publications figured out the reason for the difference between 18th and 19th years in the Bible accounts. You still think that you need to be so concerned with secular issues when it seems the Bible is actually clear after all? That solution, unless you disagree with it, will turn your so-called problematic secular dates back into Bible dates, courtesy of your own idolized scholars.
*** it-2 p. 481 Nebuchadnezzar ***
on Tammuz (June-July) 9 in the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign (Nebuchadnezzar’s 19th year if counting from his accession year or his 18th regnal year), a breach was made in Jerusalem’s wall. 
Same explanation works here:
*** w69 2/1 p. 88 Babylonian Chronology—How Reliable? ***
The Bible record is quite detailed in its account of the first punitive expedition against the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar (or Nebuchadrezzar) in his seventh regnal year (or eighth year from his accession to the throne). (Jer. 52:28; 2 Ki. 24:12) 
 

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

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

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

Let's break that down: You say 586 or 587 are being given for an event in Biblical history called the Fall of Jerusalem. Then you say these two regnal years of Nebuchadnezzar are irrelevant unless they are tied to an event in Biblical history such as the Fall of Jerusalem. 
Yeah!! I graciously accept your apology!! It took a while to convince you. Thank you for explicitly admitting that the years 586 or 587 are relevant!