Srecko Sostar

Absolutely! 
JW's makes every effort to separate themselves from "world". As product of that work they formed "Spiritual Paradise" and inner spiritual connections. In such atmosphere and condition today, and as in the past, Bible verses in 2 Tim have nothing with "worldly people", because even Paul addressed his Letter to Brothers and Sisters, Congregation/s as warning and advice how to maintain in faith.

Absolutely! 
JW's makes every effort to separate themselves from "world". As product of that work they formed "Spiritual Paradise" and inner spiritual connections. In such atmosphere and condition today, and as in the past, Bible verses in 2 Tim have nothing with "worldly people", because even Paul addressed his Letter to Brothers and Sisters, Congregation/s as warning and advice how to maintain in faith.

Yes, i understand this. Same with BCE and CE. People of later time made system how to distinguish, recognize the order of occurrence in the timeline. 
 Marking with a number, name or nickname that was added much later to a person from the distant past, has the purpose of being recognized by today's people. Precisely because of that moment when someone appears in some role (for a ruler) a lower number should show that the holder of number "I" was in power before number "II", especially if both bore the same name or were from the same line of kings. The years of the beginning and end of the reign of an individual king would follow, or confirm the order of numbers "I" and "II", or further numbers if any. But that's just my understanding of this :))

True. For many of these years there are two or even many more readings for that same year, so he would actually need to make about 45 to 50 different explanations, so far, as to why the vast majority of these readings absolutely fit the standard given years in the first chart, and why they absolutely cannot fit the vast majority of years in either of his proposal/suggestions. (I don't know the actual total number yet of verifiable observations he would need to explain, but I have done about 50 myself so far.)
One also needs to remember that the astronomical observations ("natural history") not only gives us the proper BCE date, they were already tied to the name of the king and his regnal year in which it occurred.
So his new explanation, which he can't offer, of course, would have to do the following:
Explain how a specific observation might not have actually occurred. (Even though we can verify that such an observation actually did occur. at all even though we can look in modern astronomy programs and verify positions that happened last year, just as easily as we can verify positions that happened 100 years ago, or 1000, or 3000 years ago.) Explain how a specific observation might have occurred but somehow got put down for a king that hadn't reigned for 20 years, or was assigned to a year of his reign that was 20 years off. Explain how and why a recurring cycle of observations, such as a recurring saros cycle could suddenly become meaningless gibberish with an 18 year gap that becomes a proposed 38 year gap that would never even be identifiable as a "cycle" anymore. In other words, why would they even know anything about an 18 year cycle if that cycle couldn't predict anything that re-occurred, and was therefore no longer a "cycle." The very fact that observations could be predicted and not just observed is evidence that there were no fictitious 20 year gaps that needed to be filled in. Had there been even a 1 year gap, all predictions would have been impossible.

I would imagine every locale  is different.  Where I am, wearing the masks seem to be a minor hinderance to most; as if they are adapting to the restriction put on a normally outgoing and friendly people.    They are for the most part, still themselves, which is probably not the case everywhere. 
Sometimes though, I feel the pandemic is all a demonic setup to magnify 2 Tim 3:1-5 as having its fulfillment in the world. But, further down in 2 Timothy it states,
"In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived."  
Does the GB know what being persecuted for following Jesus Christ is all about?  Nope, they are insulated by their own doctrine.  They are "lovers of themselves".  Imposters use deception to put on the air of "godliness".   2 Tim 3:1-5 describes the environment in the organization.
 

Oh dear not that old record again. The whole Watchtower / GB / JW org seems to pivot on that one false belief of 1914.
In scripture we read at Matthew 28 :18 - 20    English Standard Version
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 
So there you have Jesus' words. 33C.E.  Not 1914. 
And when will your GB get baptism right ?  Once again the words of Jesus. "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," NOT in the name of JW Org. 
 

They could hire a security guard whose conscience allows the use of weapons. WT Lawyers and Legal Department for sure can justifies that.

In some countries, building regulations may require that a shelter be built inside a new building.

Yes, about 13,000 years old or less, according to Watchtower tradition. But birds and such are as much as 20,000 years old.

The catastrophic destruction of men and animals by an overwhelming flood in the days of Noah, 2370 B.C.E. -https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001150
 According to WTJWorg and your explanation, Noah and his family and many other people of his time lived together with dinosaurs, tyrannosaurus and many other prehistorical animals?? 
That would mean how God decide to destroy some sort of  animals and to save other species. But how that is in harmony that all animals God created was good? So, dinosaurs didn't make God fell happy anymore, but he stayed good with crocodiles? :))
Fossils and deposits of dead animals speaks about past time, but dinosaurs and similar species are much much older then 4390 years. 

One or more local floods most likely contributed to the Flood legend over a long period of time. As the story was retold, as happens with all legends, it got bigger and badder. It was a cool story to tell over the campfire, and as travelers went their way they told the story to those they met. Thus the story was propagated around the world.

If humans are incorrigible, what do animals have to do with it? The destruction of "evil animals" that were herbivores ... and some of them became carnivores after they came out of the Ark? :))
I am of opinion how that was local flood that affected all people and animals of that particular earth where Noah lived. 
... earth was corrupt in God’s sight - Gen 6. Here we see expression tat is not literal. Earth can not be corrupt but people are what God have in mind. In Joseph's days and famine Bible text say: .
Moreover, people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy from Joseph, because the famine had a strong grip on all the earth- Gen 41
Do you really think how people from China, India, North America, Africa, Australia etc. came to Egypt to buy grain?
 

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/plan-transform-torquay-jehovahs-witnesses-4862265
Another Kingdom Hall sold off. 
Neighbours are objecting to plans to convert a former religious hall into three homes in a narrow Torquay street. Larkmead Homes has applied for planning permission to demolish part of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses for the scheme in St James Place, off Babbacombe Down Road. Neighbours have submitted objections, including opposition to the design and position of new windows from the proposed development facing their homes. Planning officers are recommending approval with conditions at a meeting of Torbay Council’s planning committee on Monday, January 11.
 

That's right. ALL of the rationalizations for the reality of a global Flood 4,400 years ago evaporate in the face of physical facts.
But think about the implications of the use of supernatural powers. The world of mankind was so wicked that God decided to destroy it, along with nearly all animal life. That's using a hydrogen bomb to swat a fly. After all, didn't just one angel kill 185,000 Assyrians in one night? Why wipe out everything?
This doesn't even touch the fact that there is no physical evidence whatsoever for a recent global Flood. What kind of physical evidence should be present globally? Do a little research on the "MIssoula floods" that occurred some 12,000 to 18,000 years ago in the U.S. in Washington, Idaho and Oregon. The devastation from even those huge floods is small compared to what a global flood would have produced worldwide.

Anna said:
The beginning -- as I've explained several times -- no. The end -- as I've explained several times -- YES: 539 BCE.
You have no choice -- IF you believe the Bible. Once again: Jeremiah 25:12 and 2 Chronicles 36:20 decisively settle the issue: servitude of ALL the nations to Babylon ended when Cyrus conquered it and the Persian Empire came to power.
Don't you believe what the Bible says?
Daniel did NOT use desolation as the end of the 70 years. What Daniel said about the 70 years is AMBIGUOUS. About half the commentators I've read understand his words to mean that, now that Babylon had fallen, and based on Jeremiah's words in Jer. 29:10 and most likely 25:12 and chapter 27, the 70 years had just ended, and Jehovah would go about restoring the Jews to Judah.
The Watchtower and others get the cart before the horse, claiming that Daniel anticipated the soon-to-come fall of Babylon based on his 'understanding' that the 70 years were about to end. But that notion makes several assumptions that are not stated anywhere in the book of Jeremiah, because Jeremiah said nothing about 70 years of desolation. In other words, it's a fallacy of assuming the conclusion.
The beginning, yes. But not the end.
The Bible often uses a specific number to describe an approximate period. "70 years" works with the dates 609 to 539, 605 to 539, etc.
You've just argued away the Watchtower's arguments for the 70 years having an exact beginning and end.
No, because that view directly contradicts a number of Bible passages, as described above and elsewhere.
That's a big deal alright. And it comes about precisely because the WTS needs to maintain the 1914 date.

The only way is ... faith. If you have faith than all sorts of explanations that WTJWorg thinks they have to put in print or on JWTV it all becomes unnecessary. Saving money and energy invested in all such material things (Gilead schools, congresses, seminars, etc.) would be significant. Because why waste time proving something for which “faith” is quite enough. :))

I see you didn't dare answer the question: Who is right? Your source or the Watchtower?
Your source, H. van der Waerden, said it was the eclipse that failed, "An eclipse was expected. But none occurred." Yet the Watchtower says it was a fact that this same eclipse did occur.
All you could do instead of answering the question, is to claim that I misrepresented Watchtower literature in desperation. So who is desperate here to misrepresent the Watchower just because they are so desperate to claim that COJ was wrong?
From what I have seen so far, 100% of the things COJ says about the Neo-Babylonian evidence is 100% correct. I am pretty sure you probably already know this yourself, which is why no one has even tried to quote any specifics from COJ. You seem to prefer only vague claims. And now that you have finally claimed that this quote from 1974 is something he missed, you find out that the Watchtower didn't fall for this mistake claimed by your source, and neither did COJ.
So you say I am misrepresenting the WT on this point, but you won't dare to say how.

I presume you are talking about your GB and Watchtower / JW Org here. 

Anna said:
No one is suggesting that the 70 years be ignored. The problem is what it applies to, and its beginning and its end.
Remember that all three things happened at various times from 609 through 538 BCE. Servitude of ALL Middle Eastern nations to Babylon began in 609 when Nabopolassar's forces under Nebuchadnezzar conquered the last remnant of the Assyrian army at the battle of Harran. More specific instances of servitude began, first in 605 when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and took Daniel and others captive, then in 597 when Jehoiachin and the majority of Jews were taken captive, again in 587 when Jerusalem was destroyed and most of the remaining Jews were taken, and finally in 582 when an unspecified group of Jews were taken. Each of these events is a deportation, a captivity and the start of an exile. Desolation occurred in connection with each event.
Why desolation? Because the Hebrew word chorbah does not exclusively mean "without inhabitant". Basically it means "ruined" which can be ruined physically or metaphorically. Thus, after Daniel and company were taken captive in 605, and Temple implements were taken, Jerusalem was properly described as "ruined" (chorbah) or "desolated" in at least a spiritual or religious sense. Such "desolation" ended when the Jews returned in 538 BCE.
Note, on the other hand, that servitude to Babylon ended in 539 BCE when Babylon was conquered and its kings Nabonidus and Belshazzar were "called to account" (Jer. 25:12; Dan. 5). At that point, one can say that servitude to the Persian Empire began and continued for a few months (2 Chron. 36:20).
Also note that captivity in Babylon ended about Nisan 1, 538 BCE when Cyrus issued his proclamation of freedom. But the "desolation" of Jerusalem ended some four months after the Jews set out to return to Judah, which was by Tishri (Sept/Oct), 538. And obviously, the four exiles ended either when the Jews began or ended their return journey, depending on how one defines "end of exile".
Thus, the periods of servitude, captivity, desolation and exile do not necessarily correspond.
Finally, since the Bible does not state the beginning of the 70 years, but only its end, no one can be dogmatic about it. A beginning in 609 results in exactly 70 years. A beginning in 607 or 605 gives approximately 70 years, just like the life span of a human is about 70 years. Some authors define the 70 years somewhat differently, but again no one can afford to be dogmatic.
As mentioned above, that assumes that the 70 years was an exact period. Since the Bible does not say, and there are many instances where some number is obviously approximate, we cannot be certain.
And of course, Jer. 25:12 and Dan. 5 are clear, beyond rational argument, that the 70 years ended in 539 BCE.
Of course -- but the time of servitude ended in 539 BCE when there was no longer a Babylonian Empire to be in servitude to.

Arauna is grossly ignorant of even Watchtower teaching, much less science generally. She seems to have got stuck in what the WTS was more or less teaching 40 years ago and more. By 1983 the WTS was condemning Young-Earth Creationism as "unscriptural" and unscientific. Today's YECs, following the completely nutty Walter Brown's "hydroplate theory", claim that all phenomena of plate tectonics were caused by a rapid movement of the tectonic plates just 4,400 years ago -- ludicrously and physically impossible.

Pangea, also spelled Pangaea, in early geologic time, a supercontinent that incorporated almost all the landmasses on Earth......Geologic time, the extensive interval of time occupied by the geologic history of Earth. Formal geologic time begins at the start of the Archean Eon (4.0 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) and continues to the present day. Modern geologic time scales additionally often include the Hadean Eon, which is an informal interval that extends from about 4.6 billion years ago (corresponding to Earth’s initial formation) to 4.0 billion years ago. - https://www.britannica.com/place/Pangea   https://www.britannica.com/science/geologic-time
This explains why ocean floor rocks are generally less than 200 million years old whereas the oldest continental rocks are more than 4 billion years old. - https://www.britannica.com/science/plate-tectonics/Seafloor-spreading
According to Britannica, and to my understanding of these information, Creation Days according to WTJWorg lasted very short compared to the millions of years described by Britannica. General attitude about length of 1 Creative Day is about 7000 years in WTJWorg publications. By that JW members are misinformed by WTJWorg about history of Earth and Life on Earth. 
Pangea was surrounded by a global ocean called Panthalassa, and it was fully assembled by the Early Permian Epoch (some 299 million to 273 million years ago).
 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
In this Bible verses i see similarity about "Pangea", you speaking about, and "dry ground". Also about "gathered waters". Bible said how in Day 3 that happened. So, we again have problem with WTJWorg view about what was/is length of Creative Day. JW's publications never connected each Creative Day with millions of years. 
In light of what was said your statement or opinion or belief how: The flood was a destructive event with tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanos erupting and major movement of Teutonic plates is not supported with this Britannica quotes. Of course, Britannica don't bring exact, fixed numbers of years. But difference in view of length time with WTJWorg is drastic.  
Bible don't speaking nothing about elements you put in focus (tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanos erupting and major movement of Teutonic plates). Bible speaking only about water!
Also, Bible said that God said this: I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish....The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.
Nothing about anything else, but only about water as tool for destroying all life and to cover mountains. 
 

I would never kick you out. Not just because I don't have that ability, but because I think your posts are some of the most revealing. You probably don't even realize how much they help people realize the  of the depths of dishonesty that even a Witness will stoop to, in order to try to defend the WTS chronology here. Your writing is one of the strongest evidences against the WTS chronology for those who may not have the time to consider the facts and evidence.
Also, if you look, you will see that the post I moved was only because Arauna wrote up a very good defense of creation and against AlanF, who was trying to make a big deal out of a typo again. Just click on the link and go to page 7 or 8, and you'll see why the posts were moved. https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/88407-creation-evolution-creative-days-age-of-the-earth-humanoid-fossils-great-flood/page/7
"Ignorant French"?? Are your prejudices showing?
Goodness! I don't know what he did with them. Did you know that Rutherford thought that people were Satanic if they didn't agree with him about 1925? Calling someone Satanic is simply the ultimate ad hominem. It's usually good evidence that there is something wrong with the thing you are trying to defend. Especially if the only other defense is gibberish.

Around the year 400 BCE a historian/writer named Hippias of Elis began a "sports magazine" which came to be called Olympianikai, in which he assembled cumulative victor lists from the Olympic games. (The Pythian Games had been held every 4 years, too, and the Nemean and Isthmian games were held every two years.)  The Olympic were the most popular. Prior to Hippias, there were several lists, but no consistent, portable, useful preserved lists of the victors. At this time no one had yet thought to number the Olympic games from a specific starting point to make a "common era" of Olympiads by which to count calendar years, but that would come within a few decades. Hippias guessed that the Olympic games in their official current format had been started by a famous Spartan Lawgiver, which Hippias thought was nearly 400 years earlier.
Here's a pretty easy to understand bit of research on the topic:
Contrary to what one might expect, Hippias did not arrive at the date of 776 on the basis of written records pertaining to the Olympics or to Olympic victors. Instead, he calculated the date of the first Olympiad by associating that Olympiad with a famous Spartan lawgiver named Lycurgus, who was a member of one of the Spartan royal families and who was believed to have helped organize the Olympic Games. Hippias used a list of Spartan kings to determine the number of generations between his own time and that of Lycurgus. He then assigned a fixed number of years to each generation and ended up with a date for Lycurgus and hence the first Olympiad. The inaccuracies inherent in this approach mean that the date of 776 for the first Olympiad is at best an approximation. The excavators at Olympia have suggested a date closer to 700.
Of course, neither Hippias in 400 BCE nor anyone else would have used the number 776 BCE, because the BCE/CE era wouldn't be invented for another few hundred years. Until then, just like the Babylonians, one needed an eponym list, or king list with lengths of reigns on them, if one wanted to get the full number of years between events far apart. That's why Hippias needed a king list of Spartan kings.
By the year 350 BCE or so, Ephorus began using those Olympic game 4 year "pegs" as markers for writing history. And several decades after that the Librarian at Alexandria around 200 BCE, accepted the notion that the first Olympic games had happened about 600 years earlier, a date we now call 776 BCE, agreeing with Hippias.
Now, one could more easily calculate how long ago Nebuchadnezzar lived, or Cyrus, or Darius the Great, or Xerxes or Artaxerxes, or famous persons who had lived during the time of those kings, like Socrates or Homer. And all they had to do is take the appropriate kings' lists to get the order of the kings, their names, and the lengths of their reign and begin working backwards to see which Olympiad that king's reign must have corresponded to. At about the same time as Ephorus began using the Olympiads for his writing around 350 BCE, The Greeks and Babylonians (and Jews) had already begun using the new Seleucid Era beginning in what we now call 311 BCE. Even one of the later "Babylonian Chronicles" mentions the Seleucid Era, and the Seleucids would continue to use the king's lists and astronomy to date their findings and observations within dates in this new era. It's used in some Jewish and Catholic Bibles in the books of the Maccabees. The Seleucids would still use king lists and astronomy to figure out how many years Before Seleucid Era an event had occurred. 
But, back to the Olympiads, which began as a dating system about 200 years after Cyrus (539).  It should also be mentioned that there was a 1,500 year gap in the games, and the Olympiad method was depopularized as Christianity took over around 393 CE and stopped the ceremonial games:
https://ancientolympics.co.uk/
The longest gap between Olympic Games, in years. [1,500] Whilst 4 years was and is the longest you have to wait between each games, prior to their resumption in 1896 you have to go all the way back to Theodosius I in AD 393, to the last time the olympics were run. Although the precise date is not certain, we do know that the ceremony was abandoned in order to establish Christianity as the de facto religion. Having conquered Greece, the Romans saw the Games as a pagan festival and a threat to the new state religion.
Just a note that most Greco-Romans and Christians were actually already using the Diocletian Era ever since it had started in the year we now call 284 AD/CE. It wasn't until about 525 AD/CE when the term "525" was first used as the Anno Domini dating system was devised by Dionysius Exiguus. So no one really used the term 500 BC, or 600 BC until well after Dionysius Exiguus. What we now call 776 or 539 BCE, was actually still calculated by kings' lists, or eras like the Seleucid era, or for a while, the Olympiad era. But historicans first calculated them backwards with kings' lists (which had been passed down and verified with star and planetary observations for Babylonian, Persian, and Greek kings) to be able to "peg" a king or famous person to the right Olympiad in the past. The Seleucid Era (SE) was still a widespread dating era alongside the Olympiads, and the SE lasted until the 500's CE/AD about the time when AD (BCE/CE) was becoming popular.
The main point is that no historical kings or events were tied to a specific Olympiad until after about 350 BCE, or about 200 years after Cyrus. But the fact that these had been attached to Olympiads by working backwards with the kings' lists, which were validated by stars and planets, meant that most of those Babylonian/Persian era kings would be as accurate as those kings' lists and the stars and planets themselves. Therefore we should expect Cyrus to have been "pegged" to the right date, and any other king mentioned by historians who were transferring those lists over to the Olympiad system.
This is why it is surprising that the WTS accepts Cyrus from 200 years before the Olympiad dating system was started, but rejects the Olympiad dating for Artaxerxes which would have been "pegged" only about 100 years prior to the first use of the Olympiad dating system.
The WTS rejects the archaeological dates from just before 539 BCE so that 1914 will work, and the WTS rejects the Olympiad dates from around 455 BCE so that 33 CE will work. Rejecting them in 455 (actually the change to Artaxerxes accession year is changed in the WT from 465 to 475 BCE, but it is mostly his 20th year that the WTS wants to adjust, which throws off the Olympiads dating by about 2 and one/half Olympiads.

You already failed on page 2. Now you say to also refer to page 121. Seems you are trying to convince me that your problem really is deceitfulness instead of just incompetence. You cherry-picked something Albertz said about Ezra. But you failed to note that Albertz doesn't trust Ezra to tell the truth. He says parts of Ezra are fictive (made up, fictional, lies, fantasy, myth). And Albertz goes right back to saying that the actual "decisive turning point that ended the exilic period" is 520/521 BCE:

So, no surprise, you were not being honest, either due to incompetence or deceitfulness.
"Let me assure you?" Believe me, there can be nothing from you that "assures" me of anything. Based on your track record here and everywhere I see that you have been, it's a track record full of either incompetence or dishonesty. Probably a mixture of both. I think this time your obvious M.O. even accidentally let most other Witnesses in on your devious secret.
COJ's book GTR4 is a study of historical writing, therefore it is a book about "historiography," even where that historical writing originally appears in cuneiform inscriptions or the writings of various historians after the Neo-Babylonian period.
I don't know if it's true, but they say that Charles Darwin never used the word "evolution" in the book "Origin of Species." I guess you'd claim it's not a book about "evolution." You are like a person who complains that the world-wide Christian congregation should have nothing like a Governing Body, just because the Bible doesn't use the term "Governing Body." You are not being honest again.
In the case of COJ when you found out you were wrong, you tried to walk back what you meant, and, as usual, you were still just as wrong, again. Here's a google-discovered definition:
Historiography, the writing of history, especially the writing of history based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particular details from the authentic materials in those sources, and the synthesis of those details into a narrative that stands the test of critical examination.
Even if you don't believe a word that COJ wrote, it is still most definitely a book about historiography. If you don't think so, then you are simply inadvertently admitting that you don't know the meaning of the word. Or else you are being dishonest.
It has always been well known that scholarship is a work in progress. The fact that you have consistently used deceit only teaches me not to trust you. You have shared your discovery that interpretations can be all over the place, but can't you see that this was already the whole point of looking into the secular evidence instead of just the interpretations in this topic/thread? It turns out that some of these scholars, especially if they reject the Bible text, might sometimes overlap with Watchtower interpretation here and there. But the fact that they NEVER in the slightest support our chronology to any degree is a testimony to the strength of the strong cable of archaeologically-evidenced chronology for this period. And, it supports the Bible chronology. Yet, it reveals a broken, fragmented, snapped, frayed and kinked string tied up in knots, when it comes to the arbitrary Watchtower timeline. 

😯  What a frightening, sobering ,yet truthful statement.