BTK59

@George88
Paired with biblical accounts, the secular evidence offers a compelling visual depiction of the period in question, as demonstrated by the Babylonian Chronicles even though it has a 37-year gap.
Providing the alignment between the bible account and the secular account solidifies the identity of the Nebuchadnezzar being referenced.
 
History and Bible: 1. 607 BC, the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar ll / 2 Kings 24
Bible: 2. The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against him to destroy Judah.
Bible: Jeremiah 25 Seventy Years of Desolation begins.
Bible: 2. 604 BC First deportation / Daniel 1:1
History and Bible: 2. 598/7 BC, Nebuchadnezzar orders second deportation, and there is a change of Jerusalem Kings, between Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah.
Application: Several tablets can be applied under the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign in 605 BC. Some notable examples include the Astronomical tablets VAT 4956, BM 33006, MB 41222, and HSM 1899.2.112. Additionally, any other tablet that references the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar can be considered if we take into account the stipulated 19/8 years if those tablets were created in 568 BC.
History and Bible: 3. 587/6 BC Nebuchadnezzar orders third deportation. Battles recorded in this year by King Cyaxares against the Lydians and Nebuchadnezzae's general battling the king of Mitsir.
Bible: 2 Kings 25:27 King Jehoiachin is released from prison. Solomon's Temple burned, the siege wall was taken down, King Zedekiah was taken prisoner to Reblah, and his sons were killed. Last of Judah Kings.
History: Reference back from 568 BC using a 19-year cycle for King Jehoiachins release.
605-37=568 / 568+19=587
Bible: 4. 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar, ll, leaves Gedaliah as governor over the remaining Judeans.
Does this look like a good time frame?
 

Oh! Tom, we are aware of the influence you and JWI hold in "deletion" when you are confronted with evidence of being mistaken.  The players have been well-known for a considerable period of time. So, your saying is also mine, right back at you, or should I say, many miles.

Yeah, Pudgy and as a character use Vic the one eyed Parrot, lol!

Hey! Pudgy, why don't you ask your friend to stop chocking on a simple direct question, that way it won't be ad nauseam either.  As always, it appears that you are once again defending the indefensible. I hope you don't fall asleep eating a ham sandwich either.
If you choose to behave like a bully and interfere when people are wrong, don't be surprised when you are treated the same way. So, please don't complain if you end up being treated in that manner.

For true Jehovah's Witnesses, you bet I have. I entrust those who claim to be Jehovah's Witnesses but lack conviction in their beliefs to the guidance of God.
Perhaps that why you checked mark someone to kick them off as not to impede in your research, sounds like bad form. 
People simply need to judge for themselves the type of conduct a person possesses, whether it is in the past or present, especially within this forum.
Mean-spirited, they can be the judge of that. I find it difficult to understand why individuals continuously defend one another with falsehoods. Nonetheless, this behavior is futile, as no one can deceive God.
 

I downvoted your lie, not her sentiment. What motivates you to persist in playing your word games?
 

Let's turn our attention away from hate and self-pity and focus on mature content that exposes the hypocrisy of those who claim to be Jehovah's Witnesses, allowing viewers to see the true nature of those who control this site.

What is your excuse for sending "warnings" to others and then deleting them to avoid being exposed as dishonest? Stop trying to make excuses for your and Tom's inappropriate behavior when it comes to randomly deleting people.

Who is in charge of overseeing those moderators who defend individuals like you, even though they themselves behave like lunatics? Eventually, your findings must be comprehensible to rational individuals trying to make sense of all this chaos.

It doesn't seem like that, at all. I have only given warnings to "AlanF" and I think just two to "Patiently Waiting for Truth." Never tried or wanted to try removing anyone, though. Removing someone from a forum such as this is pointless because they can just come back under another name -- often with a vengeance. Also, it bruises their egos, which is extremely important for those on forums who concern themselves with upvotes and downvotes. Those with bruised egos also never stop talking about those people who got kicked off unfairly. It's for the same reason I don't fully support our current shunning policy, either, except for certain types of cases. But this is nothing like a congregation. It's probably more like a place for anyone to add any kind of comments to jw.org if jw.org had a comments section.  

I asked for this because Steele corrected previous errors using Hunger and other sources. He thoroughly documented this in his 2019 Sage article, which includes observations of Saturn.
steele-2019-an-early-compilation-of-saturn-observations-from-babylon
"Acknowledgements
I thank the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to study and publish BM 45426. I also
wish to thank Hermann Hunger for his suggestions for improving the reading of the obverse of the
tablet and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. They are not responsible for any
errors that remain."
The commitment to enhance reading comprehension demonstrates his personal perspective on the tablet, which can be better understood within the broader context of any cuneiform tablet.
I believe I have the night sky somewhere. I will give it a try. Thank you.

I was just curious to understand which type of Jehovah's Witness I am interacting with. Seemingly, a rather unsatisfactory one. Now, the audience can clearly witness and comprehend exactly why individuals must steer clear of this website.

Will you be including James Thomas Rook Jr. in your humorous analogy, LOL? Grow up! The behavior of most people here often resembles that of spiritually immature children, making it quite challenging to communicate with you.
By continuously showcasing the individuals you have mistreated and kicked out by persistently highlighting your own misconduct, you consistently discredit yourselves through your actions. What does that reveal about your character?

It's fairly small (164k) so I'll just post it here:
text-observation-mars-steele.pdf

Certainly.  To them, it is irrelevant in this context. They are only willing to accept their flawed reasoning.
Dominion Or The Unity and Trinity of the German Race 1857
"The language of the Scythians seems to have been Teutonic, but what were its general peculiarities beyond its supposed Indo-Germanic affiliations seems difficult, at this late day, to discover. Being pressed from the Caspian on the east by the Alans, they dispossessed the Cimmerians of the Crimea about 624 B. C., and about the year 500 B. C. were urged to the west of the Volga into southern Russia. About the year 588 B. C., the Scythians were overcome by Cyaxares, uncle of Cyrus; and about 538 B. C., Cyrus called together the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Askenaz to the attack on Babylon." p.309
By consistently referring to the astronomical tablets as evidence of the 587 BC destruction of Jerusalem, while also considering the 589 BC start of the siege, we can also utilize these tablets to validate the assault on the Scythians by Cyaxares circa 588/7 BC. This timeframe aligns with the renowned tablets that display the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign when we follow the 19/8-year cycle.
Some historical records indicate that the siege occurred from 588 BC to 586 BC. Consequently, these tablets provide no substantial evidence regarding the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC, no matter how hard apostates try to change the narrative with random schemes.
It is evident that Carl Olof Jonsson disregarded a significant amount of historical evidence in order to challenge the Watchtower. This makes it particularly ironic when people refer to his work as "scholarly," as it was anything but.

Who can determine, based on this observation, who utilized an ascension year as opposed to a regnal year? Do you think you are making too many assumptions? 

I see no conflict with this observation, as you are dealing with distinct types of observational cycles. Could you also verify a specific starting point with an observer? I believe it is the reader who is conflicted when making assumptions.

He could be tough, and rightly so. For instance, anyone who held a belief they would attempt to persuade others to believe, he held to an extremely high level of academic rigor, evidence and logically sound conclusions. It didn't matter if you were a friend. He held everyone attempting to teach to the same standard. He held himself to that standard too. In his mind if you taught but failed to stand up and defend what you taught, you were a coward and he'd say so in just that many words. He had  more respect for fools who'd stand up for foolish teachings than he did for teachers who refused to be transparent and stand and answer for what they taught.
His sense of humor was a bit dry and high-brow. To really see and feel his sense of humor you had to meet him in person. It rarely, if ever, came across in text-only formats, except for those who knew him in person and understood his humor. AlanF was a product of his raising, environment and high personal drive to know what could be known.

No. I don’t know what controversy you mean. Sorry. 
 
And I hope you will say something about how you are faring these days. Hadn’t heard from you in quite a while. 

Arauna:
That all sounds very reasonable to me … but of what practical use is it today that makes this issue worth the considerable effort?

This subject is opened up just about every year...    over and over.  I think it is to sow doubt. I will just say this:  There is some "scholarly" deviancy going on here because JWs use 530 BCE to calculate 607 BCE not merely babylonian sources...... which is the impression given above. . 
The only date that is secularly "absolute" is 530 BCE ..... and this is the date JWs base calculations on.   Look in the Insight book.... I saw it there about a year ago. By irrefutable Greek sources, the death of Cyrus the Great was in 530 BCE.
Cyrus ruled for 9 years starting in 539 BCE  DARIUS the MEDE was appointed Satrap of Babylon following the victory.... . ...And the following year,   in the first year when Cyrus became the RULER OF THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH during the 14-day Festival of Akito.... the decree was given for them to return home.  This gave them a year to organize from all corners of the Persian empire - to pack up and trek for 3-4 months back to Jerusalem.  537 BCE.   I hope this bit of information sows  some doubt as to the  "reliability" of stating that the info JWs use for these calculations is babylonian. ...and leaving out the absolutely reliable and proven secular date, namely 530 BCE.  The babylonian source says that he ruled for 9 years. 
 

As you probably already know, the WTS publications are correct when they state:
*** kc p. 187 Appendix to Chapter 14 ***
Business tablets: Thousands of contemporary Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets have been found that record simple business transactions, stating the year of the Babylonian king when the transaction occurred. Tablets of this sort have been found for all the years of reign for the known Neo-Babylonian kings in the accepted chronology of the period.
Literate Babylonians from various cities all over the empire could write "17th year of Nabopolassar" [with the month and day] or "18th year of Nebuchadnezzar" [with the month and day] just as readily as we would write 2/25/2024. And there is apparently an average of about 1,000 of these contracts per year covering EVERY year of EVERY Neo-Babylonidan king.
This means that if you could just put them in the right order, you would have the entire string of dates covered from Nabopolassar, to Nebuchadnezzar, to Amel-Marduk, to Neriglissar, to Labashi-Marduk, to Nabonidus, to Cyrus, to Cambyses, etc.
At that point you would only need to identify the BCE year for any ONE of those years and you would know the entire Neo-Babylonian chronology of every king. Evidence for any one year, serves as evidence for every other year. All of them interlock with no exceptions and no contradictions.
In other words, if you had evidence somehow that the first year of Cyrus was 538 BCE, that would also serve as evidence that the 14th year of Nabopolassar was 612 BCE. If you had evidence that the last year of Nabopolassar was 604, that would serve as the same evidence that Nebuchadnezzar's accession year was 605, and his first year was 604, and his 18th was 587 and his 43rd was 562. 
This is why a discussion of the actual 'solid' evidence for the Neo-Babylonian chronology is the best foundation for discovering the date of Nineveh's destruction, or the fall of Jerusalem, or the fall of Babylon, or the start of Evil-Merodach's reign.
I think you can tell, @xero, that a discussion that focuses on just the secular evidence would be useful to more easily reach exactly the same goal. And that goal could not only be more easily reached, but also more easily verified and double-checked and triple-checked, and quadruple-checked from various independent sources. 
I say this because there is no astronomical event recorded for the 14th year of Nabopolassar which is the evidenced date for the Fall of Nineveh.
But there is an astronomical event dated to the accession year of Nabopolassar in 626 BCE. That fact alone can tell us that Nineveh fell in 612 BCE. There is a separate astronomical event dated to the 18th year of Nabopolassar in 616. That fact alone can tell us that Nineveh fell in 612 BCE. And putting those two independent pieces of evidence together we have double-checked the date. But when the entire string of Neo-Babylonian kings is put in the right order, we also have astronomical observations reported for Neb 14 = 591, Neb 16 = 589, Neb 18 = 587, Neb 25 = 580, Neb 26 = 579, Neb 27 =578, Neb 28 = 577, etc. Each one of those pieces of evidence is ALSO therefore evidence that Nabopolassar 14 = 612, so that even an observation under Nebuchadnezzar becomes evidence that Nineveh fell in 612 BCE.  Of course, this also means that, when you put the entire string of Neo-Babylonian kings in order, any evidence that 539 is the correct date for Cyrus conquering Babylon is the same evidence that Nebuchadnezzar's 18th is 587. There is no such thing as choosing one without the other, UNLESS you are willing to discard the evidence from literally THOUSANDS of business documents, and also discard the double-checked, triple-checked, . . . octuple-checked astronomical data. And it would be highly hypocritical, because whatever reason you tried to give for discarding THOUSANDS of piecies of excellent evidence would apply moreso against the much weaker and less attested evidence for Cyrus in 539.
The reason for moving that kind of a discussion to another thread is because there will invariably be someone who is so fearful of the actual evidence that they will quickly say that first you have to prove exactly when the 70 years started and ended. Or, first you have to tell me why secular scholars haven't decided on whether it was Nebuchadnezzar's 18th or 19th year when Jerusalem was destroyed. Or, first you have to prove that Russell was really wrong in promoting Zionism. Those types of new goal posts and moving of goal posts can be distracting to someone who is more interested in the strength of the evidence for attaching BCE dates to the Neo-Babylonian chronology. 

In essence, your point is that when we examine the year 539 BC, there is significantly less time for consideration compared to the 2-year timeframe between 607 BC and 605 BC. Additionally, the year 587 BC does not fit into any accurate chronology, as the 70-year period falls within the pattern of less than a year between 537 BC and 607 BC. If we were to consider 587 BC as a potential date, it would only support a 50-year period, which is significantly short of the less than a year proposal, creating a discrepancy of 20 years.

George, in the book you mention on page 105, it states 538 BC rather than 539 BC. Any thoughts?
 

I completely agree, and I can't argue with that. It's disheartening to witness individuals attempting to impose their beliefs on readers as if they were unquestionably right. Regrettably, there has been a decade-long prevalence of dishonest individuals spreading false information here.
This one goes in the category of "was" Jesus crucified on a cross or a torture stake? Some individuals falsely claim the "T" cross and not the torture stake. 
It's frustrating when people criticize me for thinking I'm wrong while overlooking the faults of those they favor. It seems they only focus on pointing out the mistakes of those they don't like, disregarding those they do. This alone reveals the "dishonesty" of specific individuals, and that is unlikely to change.
Observing the illustration regarding finding common ground with specific words, only to have it dismissed by the same person you used to illustrate that very fallacy, and to be falsely contradicted by someone inconsequential, is another sign of deceitfulness.
Who truly becomes the "troll" when they emerge from the closed club to demonstrate the actual impact to the audience? LOL!