JW Insider

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. 

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.

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 becomes recognizable to me as follows. There are scholars, archaeologists, historians and others involved in looking at historical events and dating them. These are people who independently or within the framework of recognized institutions research the matter and draw conclusions. All such individuals should have, and probably have, diplomas from higher educational institutions, so you can have confidence in their work and expertise.
 
On the other hand, we have "esteemed" researchers whose names we do not know, nor their diplomas, because they work in anonymity as individuals or as unitary teams of a religious community. It is necessary to strongly emphasize the fact that this same religious community, as a non-profit body, strongly appeals before various other "secular bodies", such as courts and other institutions dealing with religious and human freedoms (and the like), appeals for its complete independence when it comes to religious doctrines and interpretations. They refer to their constitutionally guaranteed right that no one, not even the courts, have the right to engage in assessments or judgments as to whether certain theological interpretations are legal or not, right or wrong.
In light of such a context and the claim of "independence in interpreting the biblical text" JWs (read, religious leaders) can, if they want to, say and teach what they like and see fit for their own theological consistency and doctrinal purpose while leading their believers with specifically chosen direction of one's own religious thought.
In other words, this means that any teaching of a religious community, even if it is contrary to official science and and as such recognized by the academic community, cannot be considered  as"wrong", because this right and freedom to "interpretation/s" is guaranteed by constitutional freedoms and charters.

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? 

On the venues I have seen, a sense of optimism prevails among most, having ‘escaped’ from the ‘cult.’ Some of the younger one taunt GB brothers, reminiscent of adolescents mocking out their teachers. Some of the older ones greet new ‘escapees’ with, ‘Welcome to your future!’ They all but sing the song, ‘The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades.’
It is an optimism that prevails in few other places. Elsewhere, people are anything but optimistic about the future and a fair number are not even sure there will be one. Even the songwriter pointed out that the ‘job waiting’ after graduation is in the nuclear industry and the reason he’s ’gotta wear shades’ is the threat of conflagration.
Then there is an Amber Scorah who wrote a book upon going ‘apostate’ which was hailed by the media. The reviews lauded her ‘courage’ for facing the death of her newborn just following her ‘escape’ from a ‘high-control’ religion. ‘The dodo!’ I found myself thinking. Here she leaves a place where the death of a newborn would have unleashed scores of genuine comforters with a resurrection hope that never fails among Witnesses to soften the blow, to enter a community where there is no such comfort, but only the harsh loss itself, and she still counts it a victory! egged on by people who have donned the shades, know the meaning of the song, accept its possible outcome,  and still count it a victory for facing the future unafraid, without the ‘crutch’ of religion. It’s as though the closer the Atomic Scientist Doomsday Clock gets to midnight (now, 90 seconds to go) the more they cheer, so drunk are they that humans should rule the earth through their own self-determination, and not God.
I recall Amber’s name because I made a mental note to read her book someday, along with Rolf’s. I’ll probably never get around to either of them because everyone has a tale of responding to woe. Everyone has a tale of reacting to things that don’t entirely square (as though everything in the greater world does). Everyone has a tale of miscarriage  like Job and/or being undermined by characters like Eli, Bill, and Zop. Mine is as good as theirs—they should read my books, not I theirs!—which have the added advantage of showing how you can throw out the bathwater without throwing out the baby. Or, just read and meditate on the Book of Job. That will do the trick, too.
At our Kingdom Hall, the torch has been passed to a younger generation of elders. One of them handled the ‘Instruction’ talk last night, ‘Remain Loyal Despite the Actions of Others.’ Have you ever been hurt by another brother or sister? he asked. ‘It could have been accidental. It could have been deliberate; we’re imperfect,’ he said. He then related how he had had such an experience in another congregation at the hand of fellow elders. He gave no details, other than how it hurt him deeply and he wrestled for a proper reaction.
‘What about the sister in the picture?’ he returned to the text material, commented on the accompanying photo. Here she is being yelled at. Right outside the Kingdom Hall. That’s not pleasant, is it? It probably was traumatic. What will she do? Who will she tell? (the photo inset shows her in prayer) Will she tell everyone in the congregation? [laughter, because the friends are contrasting that with the inset] Will she go to another congregation? Will she leave the truth? He then returned to his own experience. ‘Do you want to leave the congregation?’ The CO had asked him, and pointed to one or two where they needed help. The CO presented it that neither option, stay or go, was wrong, but, ‘If you stay, you will grow.’ He did stay and did grow. He related how, by staying, he got to see how Jehovah handled the issue in time.
It is always a matter of stay or go in the face of adversity. Sometimes the go is to a different congregation. Sometimes it is to leave the faith entirely.
The Bethel brothers do push back against apostasy, but with such a non-applicable vagueness that you wonder if they are not keeping something under wraps. They give the solution without mentioning the sticky scenario that requires it.  ‘The unanswered argument always appears stronger for that reason,’ I read somewhere. It makes those who examine it overestimate its strength and those who don’t can become almost superstitious, fearing the power of ‘poisonous’ words.
It can happen. Every malcontent wants to control the narrative. He wants your agenda to be replaced by his. To indulge him in all his accusations is dumb. However, to pretend he doesn’t exist isn’t all that much better. 
Sure. It’s inconsistent to present investigation as bad when it was investigation that led us to become Witnesses in the first place. It’s enough to say, ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to hang out there, but if you go there at all, watch out for toxic people, hypercritical people, unforgiving people, and OCD people—all of whom present in great numbers.’
The brothers really do give excellent counsel on combatting apostasy, but it can come across as hamstrung by a determination to avoid specifics. In the latest monthly broadcast one of the helpers gives such a talk. It is overall pretty good. But it starts with something like, ‘have you ever heard negative reports on JWs? It might be about (he mentions a few things that no one cares about—maybe they did at one time, but not now) and then says, ‘or maybe it is about our view of disfellowshipping. Bingo. I’d love to see a talk specifically on this topic. Maybe this is not the occasion for it, but is there one somewhere? A talk explaining the need for such discipline, and backing it up with secular considerations, not just the biblical ones that resonate with fewer and fewer people today. Something along the lines of, https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2018/08/the-trump-card-of-christian-discipline.html, maybe.
No need to present a litany of court cases, which opposers want done. There’s hardly a point, anyway. The pattern today is that activists influence law to the point they sometimes replace it. Lower courts may be swayed, but higher courts, not yet so infiltrated, overturns negative rulings on the basis of higher principles. Will this trend continue? Who knows? As activist ‘wokeism’ advances, with it’s demand of ‘inclusion,’ sparks fly with any religion that wants ‘insulation,’ essentially, that wants to follow Jesus direction to be ‘no part of the world.’ In the secular world, we see that law is turned inside-out and upside-down in an attempt to advance political or social causes. Will such legal manipulation one day ensnare us at the highest court level? As it did in Russia, and then the ECHR overturned the Russian Supreme Count verdict against the JW organization and the next day Russia removed itself from it’s jurisdiction?
So far, the earthly organization has proved adept at tweaking and amending policies to stay a step ahead of ones who use law in order to shut them down, Russia notwithstanding.  Always, such tweaks and amendments are lambasted as hypocrisy by opponents. Sometimes the brothers are somewhat clunky in response, but they do respond with what generally makes things better, leading some to say, ‘Jehovah uses the world to discipline his people!’ something I don’t say, but if it results in better policies and better navigation amidst a sea of circling sharks, why quibble?  
If money is involved in any way, as it always will be with any large organization, then it is, ‘It’s all about money with them!’ Even if one takes this view, so what? ‘Is there any among you whose bull will fall into a pit who will not drop everything until it is pulled out?’ Jesus says. Preservation of money is an unremarkable concern in secular matters of life. Money has the power to do things, so you want to keep it if you can. It’s only the ‘love of money’ that messes you up, not money itself.
The reason kids do not walk up and down the street with a shovel in winter or a lawn mower in summer, the way they used to, is that nobody will hire them. The reason nobody will hire them is that lawyers have exploited the occasional accident to award multi-million dollar verdicts. That’s why I pulled into the street of my childhood home to see my 77-year old dad, raised on a farm, perched atop his 2-story suburban home doing a re-roof. ‘Hey, Pop, you don’t have anything to prove at your age,’ I told him. It is also why every town used to have a ‘Suicide Hill’ for winter sledding, but now none of them do. It is safety, to be sure, but safety mostly driven by money. That hill was mobbed when I was a boy; my dad would take us there, as did many dads. Every so often, someone would break his leg. He’d emerge from the hospital on crutches with a bill for $100. Today, that bill might be in the hundreds of thousands, and people on TV would tell how their lawyer ‘got them 10 times what the insurance company offered.’
The trouble with social media is that a comment from a principled and thoughtful person is immediately followed by one from a hedonistic moron who nonetheless carries equal weight. I am ecstatic about the internet. Something that would have taken me days to research I can now find out in seconds. But I haven’t lost sight of the fact that, by far, the greatest use of the internet is for porn. Closing in quickly is the spread of ‘misinformation,’ which is always in the eye of the beholder, lately countered with ‘fact-checking’ which is also in the eye of the beholder. AI Chat and, Lord help us, deep fakes, will presently make us all (except for some on this forum, of course) a flock of permanently-manipulated marks. AI tells us various things, but the Musk’s AI, fed differing algorithms, tell us another. And yet people are awed by artificial intelligence and count it as truly intelligent.
It’s not so much the thought that you may be ‘manipulated’ on the JW website that rankles; it is the ridiculous thought that you will not be manipulated elsewhere, only more subtly, with the always reassuring majority backing, and it accord with the modern spirit to let no one tell us what to do! Those who decry brainwashing the loudest are not so much concerned about brainwashing, but about brainwashing that is not theirs. Everything must be seen in the context of, ‘Government by God, or Government by Man,’ the universal issue that Watchtower publications put their finger on a century ago. 
Social media ‘exposes’ the faults of others, to be sure, but has it taken people anywhere other than it dawning on them they must rely upon themselves (not terrible in itself) because (the following is terrible) nobody is to be trusted. Twenty years into the widespread adoption of social media, has hatred been beaten back? Or has it increased ten-fold? These things are better seen in absence of any JW context, pro or con. Is there any figure anywhere, other than the occasional no-count entertainer or athlete, who garners overall public support. Or do we not just see the unseemly results when their respective enemies succeed in landing a punch or kicking them in the you-know-whats, revealing their shortcomings for all to see?
All the same, if social media exists and becomes all the rage, as it has, you’d better learn how to use it. You don’t want to be like the Amish man who says, ‘Forget these wicked cars from the Devil. It’s horse and buggy for us!’ You will overall lose, because Christians are destined to lose, as enemies are written to have their day in the sun, as they did with our Lord, before the tables are turned to make victory our of defeat. But, even as you do lose, you will likely succeed in keeping more of your own people and will draw in a certain number of high-information people who can recognize the big picture—the sort of people JWs drew in decades ago from the religious world before anyone ever heard of social media. A bit of training would help equip ones so inclined, just as we train in other aspects of communication. 
In Tom Irregardless and Me, I wrote about the JW website, then relatively new on the internet:
“Members of the Governing Body thus repeat the pattern they are known for with any new technology: They eye it with suspicion. They advise caution. They know that when the thief switches getaway cars, it is the thief you have to watch, not the dazzling features of the new car. They follow the thief for a time. Convinced at last that they still have a bead on him, they examine the car. They circle it warily, kicking the tires. At last satisfied, they jump in with both feet and put it to good uses its inventors could only have dreamed of.”
They have done that with the internet. They have not yet done that with social media. At present, the strategy still seems to be to hope it goes away.
 

I believe both of us are pretty much repeating ourselves at this point. Before this conversation winds down I will try to summarize the points I tried to make, without all the repetition. You might get a chance to do the same. If you don't wish to, I will probably try to do that for you.
But no rush. @George88 has made a few comments that I'd like to address and he has also asked about the actual tablet evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's regnal years. I'd don't have much time, so I'd like to shift attention over to the points he has made and asked about.

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) 
 

Don't mind me not participating in the discussion about dates and events. There is a lot of math, comparing and memorizing, and reading a lot of books. I don't have that capacity, and I don't have enough persistence.
Should we deal with the figure of "70 years" as an important factor? Not really, as far as I can see. Because there were several "exiles" for many nations and individuals, not just some. And they all started and ended at different times.
Another thing that is troubling in general when we want to rely on statements in the Bible is this. God himself declared that his covenant with the Jews and his Law and some other things will last forever (not 70 or 700,000 years, but forever).
What is visible today of that "eternity"? Something still persists/continues, but how and in what way? Some claim that "that eternity" no longer lasts.
I conclude that relying on the "70 years" benchmark is unreliable.

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! 

... continued...
Not according to the evidenced chronology, of course, but according to the WT chronology. 
(Jeremiah 52:27-30) . . .Thus Judah went into exile from its land. These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar took into exile: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews.  In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem. In the 23rd year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard took Jews into exile, 745 people. In all, 4,600 people were taken into exile.
If you say the 18th year refers to 607, then the 7th year would be 618 BCE when the greater number were taken into exile.  In fact, as mentioned before, this number was two-thirds of the entire number of exiles, and the number exiled in the 18th year ("607") was only about one-sixth of the total number of exiles. 
Daniel said he was among a group of Judean exiles in an earlier group than "607." Jeremiah spoke of the exiles 10 years before "607." And Ezekiel goes so far as to use a new era of dating where each year was one of the "YEARS of OUR EXILE."  
(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!”
So it really makes no sense to start claiming that something called "The Exile" (as if there were only one) MUST have started ONLY in the year of the smallest number of exiles, what you call 607. It also flies in the face of Ezekiel's use of the term "in the 12th year of our Exile" to refer to a time starting 10 years before "the Exile" that you are arguing for.
Why do you need to start "the Exile" a decade LATER than Ezekiel starts "the Exile"? 

If only Jeremiah's prophecy had made the 70 years of Babylon's domination commensurate with the Fall of Jerusalem and the deportation of the populace as exiles. But instead Jeremiah merely says that Babylon will have 70 years of dominance so that all the nations around will serve them. Here are some of the problems with that theory:
1. Jeremiah NEVER says the 70 years are for Judah, the prophecy says those 70 years are for Babylon and about Babylon.
2. Jeremiah says that many nations will come under this servitude of Babylon. Note:
(Jeremiah 25:9-26) . . .I am sending for all the families of the north,” declares Jehovah, “sending for King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and something to whistle at and a perpetual ruin. . . . And all this land will be reduced to ruins and will become an object of horror, and these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon for 70 years.”’  “‘But when 70 years have been fulfilled, I will call to account the king of Babylon and that nation for their error,’ declares Jehovah, ‘and I will make the land of the Chal·deʹans a desolate wasteland for all time. I will bring on that land all my words that I have spoken against it, all that is written in this book that Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations.   . . . So I took the cup out of the hand of Jehovah and made all the nations to whom Jehovah sent me drink: starting with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, her kings and her princes, to make them a ruin, . . .  then Pharʹaoh king of Egypt . . .Uz;. . . the Phi·lisʹtines, Ashʹke·lon, Gazʹa, Ekʹron, . . . Ashʹdod;  Eʹdom, Moʹab,. . . Amʹmon·ites; . . .Tyre, . . .Siʹdon,. . . Deʹdan, Teʹma, Buz, . . . the Arabians . . .Zimʹri, . . . Eʹlam, . . .the Medes; . . . the kings of the north near and far, one after the other, and all the other kingdoms of the earth that are on the surface of the ground; and the king of Sheʹshach will drink after them.
So it's pretty obvious that the devastating effects of Babylonian domination will come upon all the known lands around them "ALL these surrounding nations." Not just Judah. So the 70 years were about a Babylonian domination that would END after 70 years. True, it was Jehovah's purpose that Judea and Jerusalem will be desolated through that domination, seemingly in a worse way than any of the other nations, but after those 70 years FOR BABYLON their domination would end, and it would be Babylon's turn for desolation.
Now it was mentioned before that Isaiah uses an expression about Babylon and 70 years, too. The expression in the prophecy against Tyre was that she:
"will be forgotten for for 70 years, the same as the lifetime of one king.  . . . At the end of 70 years, Jehovah will turn his attention to Tyre, and she will return to her hire and prostitute herself with all the world’s kingdoms on the face of the earth. But her profit and her hire will become something holy to Jehovah. . . . Look! Jehovah is emptying the land and making it desolate. He turns it upside down and scatters its inhabitants.  It will be the same for everyone:. . .
The WT publications say that this "70 years" expression means "70 years, the same as the lifespan given to one KINGDOM, Babylon" who will desolate the prostitute, Tyre, but that after the 70 years are over, Tyre will prostitute herself again with all the nations. As you know, the WTS explains it more fully this way:
*** ip-1 chap. 19 p. 253 par. 21 Jehovah Profanes the Pride of Tyre ***
Jehovah, through Jeremiah, includes Tyre among the nations that will be singled out to drink the wine of His rage. He says: “These nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jeremiah 25:8-17, 22, 27) True, the island-city of Tyre is not subject to Babylon for a full 70 years, since the Babylonian Empire falls in 539 B.C.E. Evidently, the 70 years represents the period of Babylonia’s greatest domination—when the Babylonian royal dynasty boasts of having lifted its throne even above “the stars of God.” (Isaiah 14:13) Different nations come under that domination at different times. But at the end of 70 years, that domination will crumble.
 
If this is true then the 70 years do not need to be associated directly with Judea's and Jerusalem's fall. It's the other way around, those 70 years for Babylon's domination would ultimately bring on a devastating effect in Judea and Jerusalem. It didn't need to be for the full 70 years that Babylon was given to begin it's period of greatest domination. So it also makes sense that we do not need to look for a specific date, exactly 70 years prior to October 539 BCE, or some arbitrarily chosen date within the first year of Cyrus. In fact most of Judea fell into exile a decade or more before Babylon tried to take the walled city of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 52)
But think about this: Tyre didn't come under the domination of Babylon for a full 70 years. In fact some of those nations in Jeremiah's list appeared to hardly come under domination at all. Some nations that once paid tribute to Egypt or Assyria would simply transfer that tribute over to Babylon. That's probably what Jeremiah had in mind for Judea when he said to just put yourself under the yoke of Babylon without rebellion and you'll save yourselves.
So it makes sense that Babylon has control for 70 years but not all nations need to come under their thumb instantly, or all at once. But what if Tyre had come under their control earlier in Nebuchadnezzar's reign and had been in servitude to Babylon for, say, 75, 80 or 85 years. Would the 70 year prophecy make sense if it were really 80 years for example?
I think you'll see what I'm getting at. The fact that Babylon was given 70 years to dominate would make no sense if some of those nations that came under the 70 years were actually dominated for 80 or even 85 years.
Yet this is what MOST of the Judeans were -- MOST were exiled for 80 or even 85 years according to the WTS chronology. 
continued in next post  . . . 
 
 

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?