Ann O'Maly

Hi @bruceq with the greatest respect...is the attitude of always accepting everything the organization says in harmony with the Bible? Didn't the leaders of God's chosen nation of Israel do bad things? Were the Israelites given a free pass when their leaders gave incorrect direction? Or were they punished along with the leaders? Isn't there evidence that God expects individuals to discern what's right/wrong on their own and not just follow along with the group?

Ummmm...I hate to sound critical, but I will ask the obvious question, what about those teachings that weren't actually true and we taught them as truth, until we found out otherwise. Are you hereby saying Jesus was lying?

As I said before, Rohl and James both agree with the established neo-Babylonian time-line, which is the one relevant to the 1914 calculation: That means they agree with 605 BCE for the accession of Nebuchadnezzar II and 587 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem.

As I said before, Rohl and James both agree with the established neo-Babylonian time-line, which is the one relevant to the 1914 calculation: That means they agree with 605 BCE for the accession of Nebuchadnezzar II and 587 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem.

How was it calculated that the beginning of the Olympiads correspond to 776 BCE?
Yes, the regnal years are part of the calculation. But their timelines are hanging mid-air, so-to-speak. So how does one nail down a particular regnal year to a particular BCE year? How is it confirmed Nabonidus' 17th regnal year corresponds to the year 539 BCE?
If only there was some kind of universal clock to be able to synchronize these different floating chronologies. Do you have any ideas on where such a 'clock' could be found and how these two loose ends can be fixed together?

Not entirely. The battle occurred in the same year as Cyrus conquering Babylon. @Arauna commented that the year 539 BCE is "the only secular date which is truly verified," and that "you" (whomever she was directing this to) cannot accept that it's "the only secular date which is truly verified" because "you use mainly Babylonian sources to try to verify the date and their dates are all over the place - not reliable" and that Persian and Greek sources are more truthful [Arauna's full quote in context]. It was at this point she mentions the battle of Opis - apparently unaware that the record of this battle is found on a Babylonian source.
Indeed. However, seeing as Arauna took it on trust that the correct year for both the battle of Opis and Babylon's fall was 539 BCE, even though none of the ancient sources give modern-day BCE dates but have their own methods of keeping track of time (e.g. regnal years and Olympiads), I was wondering if she knew how the BCE dates were arrived at; how we know it was 539 BCE as opposed to, say, 541 BCE or 535 BCE or any other year. I'm still interested in what Arauna has to say about this.
Regarding your piece about Cyrus and his wife dying and his decree and the Jews' preparation to leave, yadda, yadda - we discussed all that already in another thread which can be summarized in this post.
The Cyrus Cylinder isn't really one of the chronicles - it's classed as a royal inscription. But that nitpicky detail aside, you are quite right! We have to take on board all the evidence and not just the parts we like.
 

Not to worry. This isn't a real thread. Not exactly anyway.
I was asked to try my hand at splitting off some of the diversionary topics from the thread called:
Perhaps you heard of it. Well, as you can tell from the image attached to the link, above, it quickly turned into thread about buzzards and elephants and even took a detour down Broadway. So I did a quick review of the thread and decided that it might be good to just see if I can split off only several of the side topics, so that this new thread becomes a place for the obvious side topics that always come up in a 1914 discussion, such as:
You have no right to discuss this because it's apostasy even to bring it up! You must be a follower of Carl Olof Jonsson You must be a follower of Raymond Franz You are not being loyal and faithful to the Governing Body You must have bad motives, ego issues, etc. etc. In addition since that other thread is at least 15 pages too long, this new one will likely have a lot of free space, comparatively. So we might also just move over a few of the posts that weren't directly responding to the subject, although they might make interesting side topics, which could even be broken off of this thread someday. Feel free to make suggestions. 
I wouldn't worry about this too much. In a few days, probably both of these threads could move to the back of the line. For anyone who worries about such things I won't move posts if I find out that it loses any reactions it had. Wouldn't want to change that. But I'm also worried about the chronological order of the posts and continuity of comments. So if it's not working out, then most things will just stay where they were.

Not entirely. The battle occurred in the same year as Cyrus conquering Babylon. @Arauna commented that the year 539 BCE is "the only secular date which is truly verified," and that "you" (whomever she was directing this to) cannot accept that it's "the only secular date which is truly verified" because "you use mainly Babylonian sources to try to verify the date and their dates are all over the place - not reliable" and that Persian and Greek sources are more truthful [Arauna's full quote in context]. It was at this point she mentions the battle of Opis - apparently unaware that the record of this battle is found on a Babylonian source.
Indeed. However, seeing as Arauna took it on trust that the correct year for both the battle of Opis and Babylon's fall was 539 BCE, even though none of the ancient sources give modern-day BCE dates but have their own methods of keeping track of time (e.g. regnal years and Olympiads), I was wondering if she knew how the BCE dates were arrived at; how we know it was 539 BCE as opposed to, say, 541 BCE or 535 BCE or any other year. I'm still interested in what Arauna has to say about this.
Regarding your piece about Cyrus and his wife dying and his decree and the Jews' preparation to leave, yadda, yadda - we discussed all that already in another thread which can be summarized in this post.
The Cyrus Cylinder isn't really one of the chronicles - it's classed as a royal inscription. But that nitpicky detail aside, you are quite right! We have to take on board all the evidence and not just the parts we like.
 

You think I can control this thing? I'm at least half the problem!
[edited to add:]
Notice: Since this thread is so long. I might be splitting off some of the unrelated topics to other threads. I just learned that I can do this, so I will only move my own at first to get used to this awesome power. Also, I have no interest in moving around every little comment that people make just because it's off topic. There would be no point to breaking off to a musical-themed thread, for example, because I don't think anyone expected to start a full-blown discussion on that topic. But there have been a few topics that might be interesting as stand-alone topics.

India: Top court outlaws practice of Islamic 'instant divorce'
 
 

Well, you've just repeated others' conclusions on what the BCE years were. How did these scholars reach those conclusions? What were their sources?
The Insight book includes a comment that 539 BCE for Babylon's fall can be derived from Ptolemy's canon. But Ptolemy's canon only has a list of kings' regnal years - not BCE dates. The same is true for the Olympiads - they are not BCE dates. How can we tie BCE dates to the regnal years and Olympiads? Do you have any proposals?
IOW, there is a missing link in the chain of evidence:
We have Cyrus' rule over Babylon totaling 9 years; We  have Cyrus' 1st year corresponding to Olympiad 55, Year 1, and his last year corresponding to Olympiad 62, Year 2; We have the battle of Opis and Babylon's fall in Nabonidus' 17th regnal year. So how do we convert this data into a BCE calendar time-line?

I can tell what happened here. Even though I wasn't familiar with this supposed controversy and had never read about it in COJ's book, it seemed obvious that you missed the actual point of the statement you quoted above, and which I highlighted in red. COJ did not word this statement very well, but you can catch his meaning perfectly from the context you provided. I'll add a little more context from that section of the book so you can see if this makes sense:
So COJ has already explicitly stated that the Society does indeed argue that Thermistocles died about 471/70. (He also points out that it's an argument the Society gets, at least indirectly, through Christendom, originating with a Jesuit theologian and an archbishop in the 17th century.) COJ's point here is that the Watch Tower Society leaves out information which would show what the real point of the source material is. As you saw from a previous question you asked, the Society did exactly the same thing in another place in the "Insight" book when they claimed they were giving the "Jewish understanding" from Soncino, but left out just enough words to hide the fact that they were only pretending to give the Jewish understanding. In this case COJ is saying that although the WTS was quoting Diodorus Siculus in support of Thermistocles death in 471, they were actually quoting source material that never claimed anything about a death in 471, but another event in his life that must have happened well before he died anyway. So it should have been worded:
I've learned that it doesn't take much to catch the Society in these bits of "scholastic dishonesty." It's hard to say whether it's incompetence or deliberate or they just read with a kind of "wishful thinking" that some secular sources might somehow be found to offer support. I didn't know this particular one at all, but I am very disappointed that it keeps happening. I'm not sure if COJ ever noticed the previous one we talked about (the "Jewish understanding") but I can see that COJ has seen several more of these examples, and I know I have seen several too that COJ probably never deals with in his book. 
It turns out, however, that COJ was right in this case, and the Watch Tower Society was wrong.
This was from your post about Grayson's book. (Which is excellent, btw) The reason this book review uses the term "Series" like this is to avoid the repetition of the longer phrase, "Babylonian Chronicle Series." The book itself has some very good information about why 539 is no better a date to call "absolute" than any other date in the Neo-Babylonian chronology, and why the supposed break at 539 is arbitrary. The reviewer alludes to it, saying:
In Grayson's book, what was meant by this is that there is a 50 year gap in the Series after 539, but excellent coverage in the 50+ years prior.  (The book review you mentioned takes exception to Grayson calling ALL of the chronicles the "Babylonian Chronicle Series" especially because she sees no real continuity between ALL the chronicles in this "Series" especially due to the long break in the eras covered.)

I think this is usually true. If I were asked about my activity here, and it's bound to happen, I can say that I did what I thought was right at the time (which I do) but that I can do whatever it takes to make amends. I have seen this stuff go on for 40 years, and I am a very patient man . . .
I'm a very gentle man
Even-tempered and good-natured who you never hear complain 
Who has the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein
A patient man am I, down to my fingertips
The sort who never would, never could
Let an insulting remark escape his lips 
A very gentle man
Of course, sometimes the brothers who have to do the questioning might have a completely different idea of motivations or reasonableness. Galileo could avoid disfellowshipping by just admitting that he was wrong, but it's hard to put all that stuff back in the telescope once it's been seen. It takes a lot of humility to recant when you think someone is asking you to: "Admit that 2+2=5, because Jehovah says so!!" You just have to be able to empathize, put yourself in their shoes, and remember that the roles could so easily have been reversed if they had had the same experiences you had, and you had the same experiences they had.
 

I can't tell if you are just making up things as diversions. Should I assume this when you make statements that are not backed up with evidence? For example, I have COJ's book as a PDF and just searched through it for anything about Israel/Palestine/1946/1967 and it looks like there is no evidence for what you claimed previously. Do you have any evidence?
I mentioned this already, and rather than respond, you changed the subject to how COJ insists that people believe the Watchtower was associated with WIlliam Miller. So I look up every instance of William Miller in his book, and, as I've come to expect by now, there was nothing there that ties William Miller to the Watchtower. He merely mentions Miller in the list of persons and groups that are part of the history of various Gentile Times doctrines. So how can COJ be insisting on something that he doesn't even mention is connected with the Watchtower? Again, do you have any evidence? Or am I supposed to assume that you made this up?
I have found closer connections in our own publications, than in COJ's book about a relationship with the movement of William Miller:
*** jv chap. 4 p. 40 The Great Apostasy Develops *** In the United States, William Miller predicted the return of Christ in visible form in 1843 or 1844. The German theologian J. A. Bengel set the date for 1836; . . . Such efforts to keep on the watch served to awaken many to the prospect of our Lord’s return. Russell wrote some interesting things about Miller as I said. As I also said, he did not want to be associated directly with William Miller or tied in any way to the failure and disappointment of Miller. But he did speak of the work of Miller as being foreordained through prophecy, and therefore the references to various dates with respect to Miller as fulfilling Bible prophecy, such as 1829, 1844, and later 1859, too, although this date was dropped early because it had referred solely to the work of Barbour as the vehicle of the Midnight Cry in the parable of the 10 virgins. Here is some of what Russell wrote and published, among other things, about Miller, in Volume 3, Studies in the Scriptures, p.86,87:
The May 1883 Watchtower contained the portion you quoted, and some other points:
The above article was written by J.C.Sunderlin, and only approved and published by Russell. But the most important connection to Millerism was what Russell himself  had described a couple years earlier. The article below is from October 1881, and was the very important announcement that the "door was shut." No more persons would be chosen for the 144,000 as of October 3rd, 1881.
 
 
So, evidently, the initial tie-in to Millerism was that Miller's movement was even more integral to the leading of God's people, and that these movements were of God. Miller and Barbour were both instruments for leading God's people. The midnight cry was made through Barbour, a Millerite from the beginning of that movement. The parable of the 10 virgins was not about an invitation to all persons, or even all Christians, but had a specific fulfillment from those "virgins" who were associated with the Millerite and Advent movements. And the difference was all in their response to Miller's and Barbour's chronology, nothing else. Foolish virgins were of the Millerite "class" who almost had it right but then gave up on the time element (chronology) out of fear of being disappointed again. And the prudent virgins were from that same class of Millerites, but who listened to Barbour about his chronology. (Initially, Russell accepted Barbour's chronology that claimed the "midnight cry" started going out in 1859 when Barbour first understood that this "midnight" was the halfway point between 1844 and 1874. Russell himself had not picked up on this midnight cry until he became associated with Barbour around 1877.)
Baptist preachers, like Miller, do not ever call themselves "Father" as a religious title. Neither do Second Adventists. Bible Students today agree that it was due to his being the "Father" of the Second Advent movement, so it was out of respect for his continued leadership of 50,000 or so Second Adventists even after the failure of 1843 and 1844.

Watch out, Jesus. Brother Rando has elbowed you off your judgment seat and consigned JW Insider to the fire.

Apologies if this sounds too blunt, but that is simply a false statement. Sorry.

Your last paragraph there is preaching to the choir. I agreed 100% with @Arauna on those sentiments. But I disagree that we, (in representing and promoting the Watchtower's doctrines), should so slavishly put faith in the secular date 539/8 as if it is some holy grail that stands by itself. In truth, the evidence for 539/8 is excellent, but it really is NOT as good as the evidence that Nebuchadnezzar's "18th/19th" corresponds to 587/6. (Sorry about the slashes.) I like something that @Gone Fishing said, about how we rely on secular chronology for a doctrine that seems so important to a lot of us here. What you said about 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 is actually what opened my eyes to finally look at the evidence myself. And that's why I blame-shifted and projected the same useful counsel right back onto Russell himself. Why would any doctrine for Christians need to be based on a secular date like 539/8? Our 1914 doctrine REQUIRES that we put slavish faith in this secular date, in spite of everything we are willing to denigrate about secular dates, scientists, archaeologists.
I have no problem at all pointing to the times we have been living in since 1914 as evidence that we need God's Kingdom to be manifested for all mankind. It's the only solution, and it is all the more proved to be the only solution, as man gets himself further and further into trouble. The more advantages and knowledge we have for solving problems, the worse things get, based on greed and the human condition. Sorry . . . .now who's preaching to the choir?
You also asked that question about "What preaching campaign did he . . . found?"
I don't think he would have had patience to work on this from 1968 to 1975 if he was really looking to start something himself. Of course, I can see how ego might have come into play, but I don't know him, and I've heard that he was one of those who likes a low profile. It's easier for me to picture someone who likes to do research as a person who wants to keep a low profile, because that's also the way I am in front of people in the congregation. Probably true of most nerdy types. He must have respected the brothers in Brooklyn enough to want to ask the full question correctly, dotting all the i's and crossing all t's (assuming they have those letters in cuneiform). I'm sure he thought the brothers would be interested because it was obvious that what he was learning was very relevant to the 1914 doctrine. I talked to two brothers on the Aid Book project who said they already knew what was coming even before they had seen what  COJ had sent. They said they could guess what was in it, and had known themselves since the 1960's. But both of these brothers thought it better to just discuss it only with trusted friends.
By 1980 every researcher associated with the 1969 "Chronology" article in the Aid Book was under suspicion, and most were dismissed from Bethel before the end of 1980. But they remained elders and special pioneers because this is what they really wanted. It wasn't until someone came around to disfellowship one of them that he was forced out, not because he wanted to be disfellowshipped. From what I have read, it's the same with R.Franz. He wanted to stay in the brotherhood, and in his congregation, and had nothing against any and nothing against the Society, and no reason to "badmouth" it. It seems that in both cases, the books they wrote were published only after they believed there was false information being spread. In a related case, when I was at Bethel, I knew a few of the proofreaders especially because they often needed reference books to look up exact quotes, even for translating to other languages. When I heard that 4 of them were under questioning, 2 married couples, I saw one brother's wife trying to hide tears at lunchtime. When I told the brother that I heard the rumor, he said it was tough but, fortunately, Brother Sydlik had said he thought it would be OK for them because as he supposedly said "I can tell that you and your wife really love Jehovah, and that's why you don't really have anything to worry about." By the next morning, I had learned that it was later on that same afternoon the previous day that they had learned they were all being disfellowshipped. But within hours, the rumor had surfaced that they must not have been just apostates but must have also been "swingers" who changed marriage partners, and that the men must have also been homosexuals. I was appalled by how fast those two rumors spread. Later we discovered that one of the wives was not disfellowshipped, but somehow that didn't stop the ugly rumors from being stated as solid facts by then. My point is that none of the brothers I knew who had been either involved or semi-involved in this apostasy had really wanted to leave and start anything on their own.

What you quoted above your question has nothing to do with COJ. I don't even know what you mean by "this is what COJ" did. Did what?
I don't dismiss it at all. All I am saying is that I have looked at the evidence. And of course I don't think ANYTHING is centered on 587/6. It just happens to coincide with Nebuchadnezzar's 18th/19th year based on the same evidence you use for saying that Cyrus captured Babylon in 539. The evidence makes me think both these dates are correct, but nothing is "centered" on either of them.
There has been a kind of obsession with COJ here. I would guess that most of the persons who have studied the evidence never heard of COJ. I certainly don't need to rely on anything he said to understand the evidence for the Neo-Babylonian timeline.
 
What you list here are not questions. They are not even attached to any ideas. Going back to questions that people in the 1800's and early 1900's had is like saying we should ignore all the new and updated doctrines of the Watch Tower Society and just focus on things that Russell didn't understand. You remind me here of those JW opposers who just throw things out there like:
Pyramidology. Miracle Wheat? The Solon Society. 1844? Rose Ball. Russell's father married Russell's wife's mother?  There is no burden on any of us to get into those topics unless they are being used to make an actual point related to the topic.
So if you would like to ask a real question, or show what the evidence was and how the question from the 1800's was already resolved and why you think that the resolution isn't good enough, then we have something to discuss. But you seem unwilling to do anything more than tack up some cryptic pseudo-questions. I'm more concerned with why anyone would need to fall back on such weak tactics. I'm guessing that you already know the answer to that.
We will certainly miss you. I don't care about defending COJ or concerning myself with anyone's obsession about him. Pretending that these questions center around COJ seems disingenuous unless you truly don't know any better. 
I believe that you are aware than most all of the questions that early writers had on the subject have already been resolved. You probably know about books such as  Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Albert Kirk Grayson, so I am sure you already know the answer. Still, if you really have a question, form it as one. Ask it! Say what you believe it would do to the timeline of the Neo-Babylonians. Show the evidence for it. No one can discuss a question that has no evidence for it. Or perhaps you are aware that the evidence is not valid.
That's why I gave that ridiculous analogy to what kind of proposal one can make with tablet data - assuming no one will check it against other evidence. I literally could propose that absurd theory that the Neo-Babylonian timeline is 40,000 years long. I can show some evidence for it, too. I could start with a tablet dated to Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, and I can show another tablet dated to Nebuchadnezzar's 17th year. Then I merely assume that these were two different Nebuchadnezzar's and we therefore "know" that these two different kings must have reigned at least 37+17 years = 54 years. Then I find another tablet for Nebuchadnezzar's 17th year and assume that this is another Nebuchadnezzar and know that these three different Nebuchadnezzars ruled for at least a total of 37+17+17 = 71 years, and so on, ad infinitum, or at least until I've done this with 2,000 different tablets until I reach 40,000 years. Of course, we know that the Egibi data on many of these very same tablets will contradict all my supposed evidence.
This is why you have to show your question and/or your proposal and/or your evidence, or else people will know that you don't have anything serious.
Then ask it; no one is stopping you.

Hahaha, I was thinking that too!

In the last book, Josephus wrote on the subject, he said that the time from the destruction of Jerusalem up to the release of the Jews from Babylon was 50 years not 70. But no one is relying on Josephus for the final say on this. He was not a contemporary even if he had access to some of the contemporary records. There is far too much evidence on the ground. We don't need Josephus even though he also ended up agreeing with the Biblical and secular evidence about this period.
You should expect a lot of polemical material as Judaism saw itself  competing with Christianity during the periods in which the Talmud was written. I agree about the Kabbalah and Zohar. In fact, most religious Jews would agree, too. Parts of it remind me of the Pyramidology which was gaining widespread popularity in Russell's day. Rutherford finally associated Pyramidology with Satanism (saying that Satan was behind the building of the Great Pyramid in order to fool Jehovah's people).
I believe that all three of these ideas are mistaken. There are different forms of Judaism, but I have never known even one to call the Talmud the 'holy book.' The kabbalah is most definitely not thought of as the "most holy book" by religious Jews. I took 7 semesters of Hebrew in college and most of them were taught by reformed rabbis. All of them dismissed the kabbalah as foolishness. I hired an orthodox rabbi for six months as a programmer and we often spoke about these topics. He says that no one in his branch of Judaism pays any attention to the kabbalah.
If you look up 'holy books' 'Judaism' on Google the Talmud does not show up in the lists on all the major Judaism sites. If you look up 'most holy book' 'kabbalah' you will find a few books antagonistic to Judaism that make this fake claim. The closest you might get is the idea that the Zohar is considered the most holy book of some who believe in Kabbalah as a kind of religion. But it's a study of mysticism that most Jews reject, or at least don't take seriously.
It's a lot like saying that most Christians believe that their daily horoscope is the most holy book of the Christian religion.
Yes, and usually it's a quick rebuff, but not always. My brother went to a Brooklyn congregation while at Bethel, and they do not even try to work their Jewish territories the way you seem to work seriously with persons of Muslim faith. It is usually just a matter of looking for non-Jews. But some are very receptive. I personally have never been able to do more than just talk, but I have even seen experiences of more than one who have become Witnesses.
The Soncino commentaries are in the Bethel Library and were the favorite of people in the Writing Department who had tried to study some Hebrew. Different authors were responsible for different translations and commentaries, a bit like the Anchor Bible commentaries. Of course, the writers are only interested in their take on the Torah and Haftorahs, not any of the other books that Soncino commentaries can cover.

Good question.
It reminds me of when a letter was written to Russell about the fact that there was no zero year. Russell answered the question and decided that we don't really know, but he would rather believe that there must have been one because if you count from 606 and other BC dates, this is how you reach 1874 and 1914, for example. It's kind of an embarrassing answer to have put in the Watch Tower for 100 years of posterity to look at. Of course, since then we discovered that the "questioner" was correct all along, and Russell was wrong, so we ultimately had to change the destruction date from 606 to 607. It took us until about 1943 to finally admit it, decades after it was pointed out and rejected.
The problem is that Russell pretended he was wise in a fleshly way rather than humbly looking into the evidence. It's fine to be foolish in the sense of being humble and accepting that we don't NEED such worldly knowledge, and we therefore never get puffed up with our supposed knowledge. But when you base half your doctrines on secular dates, as Russell did, you are stuck in a trap of trying to show that you are wise in a fleshly way. Russell tried this and ended up "boasting" in knowledge that turned out not even to be true.
If you would like to read the way Jonsson frames it, you can see below that I just grabbed this from a pdf version of his book. He claims he was a pioneer who was challenged by one of his Bible studies. The actual typewritten manuscript was collecting dust on a shelf in an office just outside the Bethel Library for a couple years.  In 1978, I heard it referred to as "that treatise from the elder in Sweden." This next long quote is from his book:
It was in 1968 that the present study began. At the time, I was a “pioneer” or full-time evangelist for Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the course of my ministry, a man with whom I was conducting a Bible study challenged me to prove the date the Watch Tower Society had chosen for the desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, that is 607 B.C.E. He pointed out that all historians marked that event as having occurred about twenty years later, in either 587 or 586 B.C.E. I was well aware of this, but the man wanted to know the reasons why historians preferred the latter date. I indicated that their dating surely was nothing but a guess, based on defective ancient sources and records. Like other Witnesses, I assumed that the Society’s dating of the desolation of Jerusalem to 607 B.C.E. was based on the Bible and therefore could not be upset by those secular sources. However, I promised the man I would look into the matter. As a result, I undertook a research that turned out to be far more extensive and thoroughgoing than I had expected. It continued periodically for several years, from 1968 until the end of 1975. By then the growing burden of evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date forced me reluctantly to conclude that the Watch Tower Society was wrong. Thereafter, for some time after 1975, the evidence was discussed with a few close, research-minded friends. Since none of them could refute the evidence demonstrated by the data I had collected, I decided to develop a systematically composed treatise on the whole question which I determined to send to the headquarters of the Watch Tower Society at Brooklyn, New York. That treatise was prepared and sent to the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1977. The present work, which is based on that document, was revised and expanded during 1981 and then published in a first edition in 1983. During the years that have passed since 1983, many new finds and observations relevant to the subject have been made, and the most important of these have been incorporated in the last two editions. The seven lines of evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date presented in the first edition, for example, have now been more than doubled.

Of course. The first thing to remember is that any time the Watchtower tries to defend a chronology that is not based on Biblical or secular evidence, you should start by looking at the words that the Watchtower has left out when a quote is made. In other words, the resources that the Watchtower uses are often well-respected resources, such as the Soncino commentary. When the topic is chronology, you can just assume that a respected commentary doesn't actually say what the Watchtower is trying to make you think that it says.
So, without even looking you will know that these commentaries have probably been misused, misquoted, or selectively quoted. This way it will give the appearance that respected scholarship supports the Watchtower view, when of course, it doesn't. Here's the full Soncino quote from Insight, but with the Soncino chronology added back in where the Watchtower left it out:
*** it-1 p. 462 Chronology ***
The Jewish understanding of this prophecy, as presented in the Soncino Books of the Bible (commentary on Ezekiel, pp. 20, 21) is: “The guilt of the Northern Kingdom extended over a period of 390 years ([according to the] Seder Olam [the earliest postexilic chronicle preserved in the Hebrew language], [and Rabbis] Rashi and Ibn Ezra). Abarbanel, quoted by Malbim, reckons the period of Samaria’s guilt from the time when the schism took place under Rehoboam (c. 932 BCE). . . until the fall of Jerusalem. [*footnote] . . . The right [side, on which Ezekiel lay] indicates the south, i.e. the Kingdom of Judah which lay to the south or right. . . . Judah’s corruption lasted forty years beginning soon after Samaria’s fall. According to Malbim, the time is reckoned from the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (c. 626 BCE). . . when Jeremiah began his ministry. (Jer. i. 2).”—Edited by A. Cohen, London, 1950.
*[footnote] The entire Soncino Ezekiel commentary is consistent at dating the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE, as is the Soncino commentary on Jeremiah, etc.
The Watch Tower publications follow the very unethical practice of tacking on an extra 20 years to the prior dates before 607, without any explanation. This is why it isn't just 587/6 that they invariably leave out of scholarly quotations, but they must leave out most other dates related to the period. But in this case, they not only left out the dates, they also completely left out the "Jewish understanding of the prophecy." To save space I didn't include those explanations in the two other places where words were left out. The Jewish understanding, per Soncino, is that Ezekiel meant what he said: 390 years PLUS 40 years. The Watchtower completely disagrees saying:
*** w72 5/15 pp. 310-311 Do Not Try God’s Patience Too Far ***
However, in the actual fulfillment upon ancient Jerusalem, the forty days for the “error” of the “house of Judah” would run concurrently with the last forty days of the three hundred and ninety days for the “error” of the “house of Israel.” The unit of time measurement that Jehovah gave to Ezekiel was, “a day for a year,” made emphatic by being repeated. Accordingly, the forty years for the “error” of the “house of Judah” were to run concurrently with the last forty years of the 390-year period for the “error” of “the house of Israel.” The last forty years of that time period began in the year 647 B.C.E. Both time periods, the longer one and the shorter one, had to converge on the same date, for ancient Jerusalem was destroyed only once, namely, in 607 B.C.E.
You see what they did? They pretended they were giving the "Jewish understanding of this prophecy, as presented in the Soncino Books of the Bible." Yet, they not only left out the chronology of the Jewish understanding, they completely left out the "Jewish understanding," too.
And of course the Watchtower added about 20 years to the thirteenth year of Josiah to change 626 to 647. If you did this in any scholarly setting, it would be considered devious. It's called "academic dishonesty."
 

Let Jehovah fly the plane - do not do it yourself!

I've mentioned this before on the forum, but I was traveling with Brother Schroeder (along with Charlotte and Judah) in 1978 where we visited several countries in Europe together (England, France, Spain, Italy) but I had to do work for about a week in the Athens branch and didn't catch up to him again when he went to Innsbruck, Bern, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, Copenhagen, and a couple other places for meetings specifically about Carl Olof Jonsson. I knew in early 1978 that Jonsson had sent his manuscript a few months earlier, and had asked for comment, but no researchers at Bethel would touch it. I saw a photocopied portion of it in 1978, but actually never saw the entire manuscript until Brother Rusk had it in 1980. (Rusk and I were going over logistics for my upcoming wedding, but I asked him about it when he had it across his desk, and was making some notes.) He never responded to the manuscript either. One brother in Writing told me that no one even wanted it on their desk because they knew it was the same information, basically, that they had already come across in researching the Aid book. Similar information had come in from two different sources in the 1960's, too. None of the research projects that Brother Schroeder assigned to me were directly related to it, and I was not aware of Schroeder's specific actions he was taking with reference to Jonsson, until I read about it decades later.
But Jonsson has put copies of his correspondence with the Society up on a website:
http://kristenfrihet.se/english/corr.htm
Jonsson admits to making at least one mistake in this correspondence, but the Society does appear to be the one "playing dirty." I would love to say that I don't believe it, but I was working even more closely with Schroeder back when he showed all the same "qualities" in his campaign to get rid of R.Franz from late in 1979 right up into the 1980's when he was finally successful. It was not something that a squeamish person (like me) wanted to see.
I don't really know what kind of a person Jonsson was, but I suspect that he is mostly right in the claims he makes about how he was treated. Also, I can just imagine even some of the personalities that show up on this forum and imagine what they would be like if they thought they had the actual power to cast someone into Gehenna, for example.

Better the pilot be redirected and take action than to crash into a mountain.