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No need to. Jeremiah explained why the 70 years need not be related to the destruction of Jerusalem. It was pretty obvious, no doubt, that nations served Babylon over a period of Babylon's 70 years of domination. (Can I assume you might still get to that question I asked you about the explanation of Jeremiah 25 in the Isaiah book?)
Also, of course, Thiele takes Zedekiah's 11th year (and 4th month) as part of a Nisan-to-Nisan year which also influences his acceptance of 586 as the destruction of Jerusalem. I think Thiele is still an excellent resource for this time period. He is another good resource to show why 607 has no evidence behind it for Jerusalem's destruction.

No, that's not true, and that's the problem. The reader is NOT advised. That's a form of academic dishonesty.
Here is one of literally HUNDREDS of examples of this in our literature:
*** it-2 p. 481 Nebuchadnezzar ***
One fragmentary Babylonian text, dated to Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year (588 B.C.E.), does, in fact, mention a campaign against Egypt. (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by J. Pritchard, 1974, p. 308) You might know better, of course, but don't you think that some of the brothers will read this line in the "Insight" book under "Nebuchadnezzar" and get the impression that a well-researched resource about Babylonian texts indicates that Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year was 588 B.C.E.?
It's amazing (and shameful) that our publications still do this repeatedly. The referenced book by Pritchard is 100% aware that all the evidence consistently points to 568 for Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, and therefore 587/6 for his 19th year (not 607). There is only one reason that the Watchtower publications sneaks 588 in there without any explanation about how the book they referenced actually rejects this date. It's because 588 is the date that would allow 607 to work which would allow 1914 to work. We should not have to depend on dishonesty and slick tricks like this. If the evidence stood on its own, we would be happy to point to the evidence, instead of trying to denigrate the evidence, and then "dishonestly" forget to tell the readers that it's this same denigrated evidence that we rely on for 607.

I will be honest in a debate whether any other party in a debate is honest or not. That is what I meant when I said it is not a two-way street, at least for me. Debates often end up highlighting the academic dishonesty or false foundations of another person's theory. Academic dishonesty can often be the result of giving too much weight to a certain interpretation and then using logical fallacies to bolster the false claims. So academic dishonesty is not always a "personal" dishonesty, but can come about through sloppiness in research, misuse of evidence, being fooled by someone else's mistakes, etc.
Thanks for admitting that.
This is pretty much true. A lot of people make claims that turn out to be untrue, even if they make perfect sense to a lot of people. I have heard people who believe the chronology of the "Great Week" mentioned below (from http://prophecycorner.theforeverfamily.com/chron.html )
Since it is thought that 6,000 years would go by before the sabbatical millennial Day of the Lord begins, some people have thought that the 6,000th year since Adam's creation would be about 2,000 A.D. I have heard it said that from Adam to Abraham was 2,000 years and from Abraham to Christ was 2,000 years. Like the "Oslo" schema, it's more of a "scheme" than a chronology, but some will fight for it as if it were the only true Bible chronology, and anything different is just a secular falsehood. In the same way, some will also fight to make Cyrus' Edict begin around 460 B.C.E. so that they can make the 70 weeks of years match with their supposedly more "obvious" interpretation of Daniel. There are a lot of claims about Bible chronology, just like several of the old Watchtower claims, that have necessarily been abandoned by now for obvious reasons.
That book contains many claims that are shamefully wrong. Note this one on the page you quoted:
It is because of making the mistake of dating the beginning of the seventy-year period for the desolation of Jerusalem and the land of Judah after King Jehoiakim reigned at Jerusalem but three years that the chronologers in Christendom throw their time schedule of history at least nineteen years out of order, shortening up the stream of time by that many years. They do this because of trying to harmonize the Bible records with the astronomical Canon of Claudius Ptolemy, an Alexandrian or Egyptian astronomer of the second century after Christ, but whose system of astronomy has long since been exploded. In this we do not go along with such chronologers. For a time, the WTS had relied on the king list matching Claudius Ptolemy's to get 539. People noticed the mistake right away. In fact, one letter came in to the Watch Tower the year before the book came out. They should have known better than to print this nonsense.
For example, Max Hatton wrote the Watch Tower Society on June 10, 1962. This letter also contained information about an even earlier letter sent to the Watch Tower Society on July 9, 1959. The 1962 letter says in part:
To date our arguments have been largely concerned with the 70 years mentioned by Jeremiah. I am confident that with the aid of the Societies [sic] publications and some private research I have and will have no real difficulties with this portion of the discussion. It seems that the next item for discussion will inevitably be whether the period of 70 years literal desolation can be accommodated by a Chronological arrangement for the period. As far as I have been able to ascertain the basis for the Chronology, popularly accepted, for the years 747 B.C., to the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. and further on, is the Canon of Ptolemy. It therefore seems obvious that one cannot accept the record of the 70 year desolation and at the same time accept the Canon as being an accurate record. In rejecting the Canon completely, a problem seems to arise, because, as far as I am aware, the date for the destruction of Babylon in 539 B.C. per medium of the Chronological arrangement for which Ptolemy's Canon is the basis. . . . I would greatly appreciate your advice then, whether 539 B.C. can be accurately calculated by some other means entirely independent of the Canon, such as a continuous list of kings with their Accession years calculated by the length of their reign, based on some other evidence. (Either Bible or Secular.) I fully appreciate the advice in the Watchtower of 1st December, 1946 that an eclipse of the moon is not sufficient data by which to locate the year of a certain event, however the "Secretary of the Australian Institute of Archaeology" has advised me that "Ptolemy's Canon is based on a much wider range of astronomical data, the details of which are recorded in his Almagest. It is necessary to correlate the details he gives in his canon with dates he has calculated in other works. The sum result of this is that his canon appears to be accurate within all reasonable limits."  . . . Could I be advised please in what respects the Society considers the Canon to be in error and also reasonable grounds to substantiate such a claim? That is only a small part of the letter, without the original paragraph breaks from the letter. The Watchtower wrote back to Brother Hatton on June 28, 1962. That letter gave some of the best evidence ever that the Society simply did not understand the claims they were making or that, less likely one hopes, they were willing to be very dishonest. Brother Hatton's next response naturally contained more questions, and even more research, and the Society's next letter, told him that they didn't have time to stop for such a research project with the current preparation for the 1963 "Everlasting Good News" assembly coming out (at which the Babylon book would be released). The following exchange of letters shows that the Society was now on the defensive with nowhere to turn. The Babylon book only made the matters worse because the Society was obviously "digging in its heels" on things they had no right to claim. They asked him to give less attention to chronology. The Society told him that if he didn't agree he could still point persons to the place in the Society's publications where such explanations were given, even if he had mental reservations. By July 1965, the Society had disfellowshipped both Brother Hatton and his wife for apostasy. His wife had possibly never said anything but it was suspected that she supported her husband. 
 

@DefenderOTT
I know that you have already said (elsewhere) that you were not the originator of much of the post you offered above. Just to help clarify what you are saying, I noticed that the first four paragraphs are exactly what can be seen from a person who wrote this on YAHOO ANSWERS about 6 years ago. https://br.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111008133433AA7SDXA Those are the 4 paragraphs that start and then end as follows:
Then you apparently added your own words in the fifth paragraph above:
Then it appears that you went back to quoting YAHOO ANSWERS, quoting the next three paragraphs, which started and ended, thus:
Then apparently you added your own words again to finish up the discussion.
I only went to the trouble of mentioning all this because I would like to respond at some point to those claims from YAHOO ANSWERS.
For reference, here is the remaining part of the quote that was found on YAHOO ANSWERS. Although it's mostly wrong, it's also partly correct, and it's well written, and I expect that the points will come up from time to time:
 

[I'm repeating here a post which is a response I just made to this claim about Armstrong, as it was moved to a new topic:]
And, don't forget that, in 1956, Herbert W Armstrong supposedly stole the idea from the February 1, 1955 Watchtower, which put the end of 6,000 years within one year of 1976:
*** w55 2/1 p. 95 Questions From Readers ***
In 1953 in preparing the chart that appears in the book “New Heavens and a New Earth” a one-year error was brought to light. By the aid of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures the difference between the two numbers appearing at Genesis 7:6 and Genesis 7:11 became apparent, especially since there are two different Hebrew words here maintaining a distinct difference. At Genesis 7:6 the number 600 referring to Noah’s age means 600 full years, being what is generally termed a cardinal number. Whereas at Genesis 7:11 the number “600th,” an ordinal number, means 599 full years plus a portion of another year. . . .  Inasmuch as previously our chronology considered Noah as 600 full years old when he entered the ark, instead of the actual 599 years and some months, as we now see, this has meant that the preflood dates must be shrunk by one year, this bringing Adam’s creation for the fall of 4025 B.C. Incidentally, Jesus, who became the second or “last Adam,” was born in the fall of the year around the first of October.—1 Cor. 15:45, NW. It is well to understand that all Bible chronology dates for events prior to 539 B.C. must be figured backward from the Absolute date of 539 B.C. In the sure date of 607 B.C. for the fall of Jerusalem we have an anchor for the chronology establishment of the important year of 1914. By an overwhelming number of physical facts occurring since 1914, this great turning-point year in man’s history, 1914, has been abundantly confirmed. According to Genesis 1:24-31 Adam was created during the last part of the sixth creative-day period of 7,000 years. Almost all independent chronologists assume incorrectly that, as soon as Adam was created, then began Jehovah’s seventh seven-thousand-year period of the creative week. Such then figure that from Adam’s creation, now thought to be the fall of 4025 B.C., why, six thousand years of God’s rest day would be ending in the fall of 1976. However, from our present chronology (which is admitted imperfect) at best the fall of the year 1976 would be the end of 6,000 years of human history for mankind, 6,000 years of man’s existence on the earth, not 6,000 years of Jehovah’s seventh seven-thousand-year period. Why not? Because Adam lived some time after his creation in the latter part of Jehovah’s sixth creative period, before the seventh period, Jehovah’s sabbath, began. . . . The very fact that, as part of Jehovah’s secret, no one today is able to find out how much time Adam and later Eve lived during the closing days of the sixth creative period, so no one can now determine when six thousand years of Jehovah’s present rest day come to an end. Obviously, whatever amount of Adam’s 930 years was lived before the beginning of that seventh-day rest of Jehovah, that unknown amount would have to be added to the 1976 date. Of course, just a decade or so later, the Watchtower began minimizing the amount of time it would have taken for a perfect man to name all the animals if Jehovah brought them to him in a steady stream. The flaw in this reasoning was that angels would surely know that amount of time that Jehovah had kept a secret, so they would be aware of the day and the hour "when 6,000 years of Jehovah's present rest day come to an end."
There is also evidence that Fred W. Franz, who wrote the article above, in 1955, began recalculating in the early 1970's and wanted to begin publishing October 1974 as the date for the end of the 6,000 years of human history. F.W.Franz, I am told, thought this would have strengthened the 1975 argument. But this was supposedly one of the few times when N.Knorr put his foot down and told him he had caused enough trouble with 1975, and that Knorr thought that this vacillation would actually weaken the faith that people put in the Watchtower.
You probably already know this, but to your point, many Witnesses had to be counseled not to listen to Armstrong's radio program, especially in the late 1960's and early 1970's when many Witnesses claimed that he sounded exactly like the Watchtower.

If one were to work from the date of Jerusalem's fall in 587 (or 586 BCE) then you could add 2,520 years to it and reach the year 1934. If you are looking hard enough for something, you can always find it and make it significant through some bit of world history or organizational history. (rise of Hitler, Roosevelt, Federal Reserve Act, Jewish immigration to Palestine begins, etc.)
Also, although the all the independent Babylonian sources are clear about when Nebuchadnezzar's 18th and 19th year began, the Bible uses both dates for the destruction of Jerusalem.
(2 Kings 25:8, 9) 8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that is, in the 19th year of King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar the king of Babylon, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard, the servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He burned down the house of Jehovah,. . .
(Jeremiah 32:1, 2) 32 The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah in the 10th year of King Zed·e·kiʹah of Judah, that is, the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar. 2 At that time the armies of the king of Babylon were besieging Jerusalem, . . .
There is no absolutely sure way to tell if this difference referred to two different ways of counting Nebuchadnezzar's year of reign, of if one refers perhaps only to a siege that started a year earlier. There is even a problem in deciding for sure whether the year began in the spring or the fall. Both methods are used in the Bible, and it's sometimes difficult to figure out which is which.
(2 Chronicles 36:10) 10 At the start of the year,* King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar sent to have him brought to Babylon,. . . [* NWT footnote: "Possibly, in the spring"]
In other words, one could stretch the 2,520 years to even reach only to 1933, or possibly as far as 1935 which was once a more significant date in our own history. It was, for nearly half a century, thought of as the end of the call to the heavenly hope, but now it is only seen as the year when the announcement clarified the earthly hope of the Jonadab class, and since which date the vast majority of new Witnesses have been "called" to an earthly hope.
Hanging on to the "1914 prediction" was considered a vestige proving that Jehovah's spirit was truly with the early Bible Students in a more special way than just their separation from Babylon the Great. Remember that it didn't really matter when Jerusalem was destroyed, as long as 1914 had still been predicted. (The actual initial method used was not even concerned with the destruction of Jerusalem.) When the idea of 2,520 years was added to the mix, the year for the destruction was determined, basically, by counting backwards from 1914. When Franz determined that Russell had made a one year error (due to his incorrect belief that there had been a "zero year") the destruction of Jerusalem was merely changed to 607 so that 1914 would still work. 1914 has always been the goal, not the actual date for Jerusalem's destruction.
Therefore, I doubt very much that a 20 year change is in the works. It would only buy the generation 20 more years, anyway, and would still require a two-lifespan generation to cover the FOUR+ biological generations that have seen "1934." (My 103-year-old grandmother-in-law [from Long Island, NY] would have been 20 in 1934 and was just here visiting her great-granddaughter over a week ago.) 
There are additional problems with revisiting the Daniel 4 and Luke 21:24 to make a change. It will receive renewed scrutiny, and having failed us in the past, will probably not seem so convincing this time. People will notice that there is no second fulfillment mentioned in Daniel 4, and a recent Watchtower (3/15/2015) has already come out to say that we no longer add second fulfillments unless the Bible explicitly tells us that one exists. As far as Daniel 4 is concerned, the entire dream was fulfilled on Nebuchadnezzar. Also, people will surely question how a brutal haughty King that destroyed Jerusalem can somehow represent Jerusalem. (We once taught that Nebuchadnezzar pictured Jesus, making Jesus a kind of Greater Nebuchadnezzar.)
If allowed to scrutinize the topic, all the other questions will surely surface this time, including the supposed "rule" that a day is always a year. If this were true, then why did Daniel multiply Jeremiah's 70 years by 7 to make 490 years? ("70 weeks of years"). Why do our publications never use a day for a year when the Bible speaks of 1,260 days, 1,290 days, or 1,335 days. Why are the 3.5 times of Revelation kept as a literal 1,260 days? Why does Revelation 11 say that the "Gentile Times" were only three and one-half times, or 42 months long?
 
 

I think the content of the verse in Micah about having a "waiting attitude" is good, but the context might seem a bit harsh in that the verse applies to waiting on Jehovah when it's an enemy we are up against. I don't think of the Governing Body as an enemy here, and I don't think you do either.
In fact, the only issue I see is that a long-standing tradition made sense for many years, but has turned out to cause more problems than it solved at this point. Still, I don't think it is even that big of a problem when it comes to the day-to-day life of an average Witness.
After all, whether 1914 is a necessary doctrine or not:
We still know that we are living in the time of the end, or the "last days" even if that phrase had the same meaning to Christians in the first century. We still know that Satan has been cast down and walks about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone, because his time is short. This is also true even if it had the same meaning in the first century. We also wait for his final abyss and subsequent final demise. We still have a preaching work that is just as important as ever. Jesus is still "King of Kings" and ruler of those who rule the earth. The kingdom is still our focus, and continues to be the theme of our hopes and prayers. We still know that we must overcome critical times, hard to deal with, just as Paul warned Timothy that he would meet up with. We still know that Jesus is present, wherever even two or three are gathered in his name. We know that Jesus will be with us right up until the conclusion of the system of things. We don't live for a date, or serve for a date anyway, so whether or not the end comes in our lifetime or we find out about it after a moment of "sleep" in death, the important thing is still our love for God and neighbor, and "what sort of persons we ought to be." So probably the only thing that we might consider to be different is the idea that the Gentile kings had their day and the times of these nations and their kings ended 103 years ago. This, ironically, is the only prediction that we ever said we got right about 1914 in the first place. So it might end up requiring a bit of humility, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of humility, either.

The general view by the Governing Body is likely that this is exactly what they have been doing for as long as possible, but I'm sure that all or most of them believe they have been doing it for the right reasons. I have no reason to believe that any of the current Governing Body doubt the general idea about 1914, whether or not all of them specifically believe in the Daniel 4 foundation or not. (For many years, Daniel 4 on its own, had nothing to do with the "foundation" for 1914, although it was considered to be a weaker, but still valid, bit of corollary evidence by Russell.)
If it were only true. What this "scholarly type," R.Furuli, had done was take the 10 pieces of independent archaeological and historical evidence and not even address 8 of them except with flippant false claims that shows he doesn't even care to research them. He pins all the importance on only ONE of those pieces of evidence, which is odd because 607 as the year when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem is falsified just as easily by the other pieces of evidence without even needing to rely at all on this one piece of evidence. But then, even at that, he comes up with the most convoluted reasons for rejecting this one item: VAT 4956.
VAT 4956 is one of several astronomical diaries that would ultimately identify Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year as the year 568/567 BCE, based on the astronomy that fits no other possible year. Of course, if the tablet is correct, then it's the same as saying Nebuchadnezzar's 36th year would be 569/8 BCE, his 35th would be 570/569 BCE on back to his 19th (or 18th) year, which would be 587/6 BCE, which is a year that Jeremiah and 2 Chronicles associate with the destruction of Jerusalem. In other words, it's just another of several items of evidence that consistently fits the "secular" chronology -- which also happens to fit the Biblical chronology, even though these particular bits of Biblical evidence are not accepted by the Watch Tower Society.
But even though Furuli grasps at all kinds of straws to invalidate the tablet, most JWs don't even realize that Furuli ADMITS that most of it actually does refer to the date 567 and no other possible date. That is an admission that MOST of this tablet still invalidates the Watch Tower Society's preferred date of 607 BCE for the Temple destruction. He even says that the museum curators might have taken a grinding tool and forged the "37" onto it to look exactly like all the other cuneiform letters that were made when the clay was still wet. Since it's a two-sided piece of clay, he even thinks that one of the two sides might have been faked and didn't originally go together. This is in spite of the fact that he admits that the number 37 on the tablet (in more than one place) is the correct year for most of the readings.
He thought he could find some trouble with the lunar readings, based especially on the fact that there is a known copyist's error on the tablet. He admits that he was an amateur when it came to trying to figure out the astronomical readings, but it does not take a genius to try to duplicate his readings and see that his mistakes were worse than amateurish. They have been discussed elsewhere on the site, and so far, everyone who has tried to duplicate them has seen the errors.
But as you said: "That's all you need." Unfortunately, this is true for many persons. I think that most of us believe that if someone makes a claim that fits a preconceived notion, it must be true. It's a lot like watching CNN and MSNBC fall over themselves to find new ways to use the phrase "Russia hacked our 2016 election." Very few point out that one of the candidates failed to even visit states where she had a preconceived notion of a sure win.

I haven't invoked the part of this story that involves the "political" powers that have played no small part in keeping the 1914 doctrine written into our own history. But as you already admit that it applies to everything, I will oblige. Not that this has anything to do with real evidence for anything, but for me, it at least counters the common idea that if something is believed by non-Witnesses or ex-Witnesses it must be wrong. In this case, the same evidence I have already presented was also believed by several members of our own Governing Body, and even more members of our own Writing Department, plus at least one Gilead Instructor and at least two respected members of the Service Department. One is a current Governing Body Helper, and another still works in Writing and both still give convention talks, etc.
As a New Yorker you are not living too far away from some of those who were close friends of many of the people I mention, and you might have an opportunity to validate any part of what I'll mention below:
Daniel Sydlik of the Governing Body once said to me "off the record" that he thought we should just scrap the entire chronology and "start from scratch." I had heard that he had said this to several brothers prior to 1974, and I wanted to know (in 1978) if he still felt that way now that he was on the Governing Body. At the time I was only willing to question the 1918 and 1919 doctrines, and I went to him because I had been told by several people that he dismissed them as fantasy. Ewart Chitty, Ray Franz and Lyman Swingle had also made similar comments even about 1914, not just 1919. I had only heard Lyman Swingle say it personally, but I knew people who said that Chitty and R.Franz had also no longer believed that 1914 was a doctrine we should promote in the way we were doing it. The people who told me this were two of my best friends in Writing and one more very good friend in the Service Department. When Brother Schroeder complained to me about people willing to dismiss 1914, he inadvertently gave me 3 more names in the Writing Department when he said that it included everyone currently in Writing who worked on the Aid Book. The brother who gave my wedding talk, Brother Rusk, was a hard-line loyalist to anything that Fred Franz believed, and he also warned me against my friendship with 3 brothers in Writing, two of whom worked on the Aid Book.
I would never have had the nerve to ask why no member of the Governing Body had not stood up to Fred Franz and questioned the chronology doctrines outright. But several members of the Writing Department explained what they thought was happening. And their ideas were consistent: When serious doctrinal issues were being questioned (like chronology) there was very little that could be done prior to 1977 because it didn't matter what the Governing Body thought anyway, because Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz would override it in favor of "conservative" policies and doctrines. Also, neither Grant Suiter nor Milton Henschel ever cared much for scriptural discussions, which was obvious by the way they handled morning worship only as if it were "business reporting." So any scriptural matters were decided by the Oracle (Fred Franz). The Governing Body from 1971 to 1977 was not really a Governing Body yet anyway in the sense that they could actually bring up major doctrinal issues for questioning. Swingle could grumble about 1914, and R.Franz had already done the research for the Aid Book chronology article, but when R.Franz was added to the Governing Body in 1971, it was with Gangas, Greenlees, and Jackson -- and those three just mentioned were 100% supporters of Fred Franz. In 1974, when Sydlik and Schroeder were added and were known wild-cards, it was still at a time when the Governing Body had no authority to decide anything of any consequence. Also, of course, they were added at the same time as Ted Jaracz, Charles Fekel, Karl Klein, and Ewart Chitty were added. Those four were considered to be 100% Fred Franz supporters, even sycophants was the word used of most of them. Chitty admitted to a very close and respected friend of mine that he had grave reservations about 1914, but I have my doubts he would have pushed against the strength of Fred Franz on a doctrinal issue. (Of the last four, Jaracz, Fekel, Klein, and Chitty, I will not break down all the different rumors about each one, but I will say that it might have seemed obvious, based on their histories, that they would always vote with Fred Franz.) Barber, Barr and Poetzinger were added in 1977 and it was assumed by at least one friend in Writing that they filled out an even wider safety net to keep all votes for change from ever reaching 66.67%. I have to say that I knew almost nothing about any of these last three, and they never said anything during morning worship that gave a hint that they might have had preferred views or teachings that they felt were priorities.
By the time any dangerous questions could have been asked, Schroeder spearheaded a crack-down on such questions, starting in early 1980, and I even watched him try to position himself as the new "Oracle" in the event that "King Saul" died. (The expression, "That won't change until King Saul dies" was heard as a kind of joke many times in the Writing and Service Department, and it actually referred to someone else before Fred Franz.) Some people were very serious about it, however. At any rate, "King Saul" kept his power by minimizing the work Schroeder was doing throughout the 1980's and sometimes pushing for explanations that were exactly the opposite of what Schroeder proposed. (To be fair Schroeder proposed some fairly odd changes, which I won't get into here and now.) But one of the specific items that Schroeder had proposed was the idea that the "generation" should be seen as the generation of the "anointed." He even went to give talks in Europe promoting this new view. In response, Franz pushed for making it the generation of the "wicked" which actually made more sense in light of some scriptures. Schroeder also pushed one last time on trying to prove that the heart was not just a figurative, but a literal seat of emotion, love, hate, envy, etc. Franz responded with a long Gilead Graduation talk in excruciating detail about the meaning of the liver and fat, and why the fat was forbidden just as blood was forbidden. It seemed very serious, but Schroeder told me what he thought of it.

Yes. Partly 607, and partly the inconsistent views and inconsistencies in translation and explanations surrounding the 70 years desolation and captivities, the 70 years of Babylonian hegemony. Each of these bullet points could probably be expanded into 10 more bullet points, and a lot more scriptures than the ones listed. I'll give just a few examples which would all be included in the first bullet point:
The NWT has a fairly obvious mistranslation in Jeremiah 29:10. It has been discussed ad nauseum, but the general view from Hebrew scholars is that we have chosen the word "at" instead of "for" because the more obvious translation would lead people to notice that the verse is directly about Babylon and only indirectly about Judah. Our current doctrine requires the opposite. There was a time when the entire NWT was only translated into a dozen additional languages, and in order to say that these were actual "Bible translations" and not just translations from the English into another language, brothers in a couple countries with Biblical language skills translated directly from Hebrew. Two of these translations came out with the dreaded "for" instead of "at" and had to be changed back to match the NWT English. After many consistent denials of the validity of "for" here, the Isaiah's Prophecy book made use of the exact same point about Babylonian hegemony in the discussion of Tyre. The Insight Book admits that Zechariah 1:12 and 7:4 must have been written almost 90 years after 607 BCE, which would be 90 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, if it had happened in 607. Ten different independent "witnesses" and literally thousands of dated contract documents all combine to provide evidence that it was only 70 years earlier that Jerusalem was destroyed, not 90. Yet, Zechariah 7:4 also indicates that it was only 70 years earlier, showing that Bible history is confirmed by archaeology. This is something that we would normally get excited about, whenever archaeology confirms the Bible record. But in this case we don't say anything because we have a doctrine that has forced us to add 20 years to every date prior to 539, all the way back to the creation of Adam. [edited to add:] Also I had included the reference to Ezra 3 in that initial bullet point because it says that the sound of those who must have been 70-plus-year-olds (per Zechariah) wept with such a loud voice that some people couldn't distinguish the shouts of joy from the weeping. This is far from definitive, but in the Watchtower's theory of events, this would have referred to the sound of the 90-plus-year-olds. If we accept the history from Zechariah 1 & 7, they would have been within the range of the expected life-span, 70-plus. (Psalm 90:10) . . .The span of our life is 70 years, Or 80 if one is especially strong.. . .
(Ezra 3:12,13) Many of the priests, the Levites, and the heads of the paternal houses—the old men who had seen the former house—wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, while many others shouted joyfully at the top of their voice. 13 So the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shouts from the sound of the weeping, for the people were shouting so loudly that the sound was heard from a great distance.
 
 

Even before C.T.Russell was born, commentaries on Bible prophecy included  dozens of potential dates. Nearly 200 years ago, a couple of them even included 1914 as potentially significant time period. The "1914 presence" doctrine, however, is only about 75 years old.
All the ideas behind the Watch Tower's version of the 1914 doctrine have already been discussed for decades now, and all of them, so far, have been shown to be problematic from a Scriptural point of view. Since the time that the doctrine generally took its current shape in 1943, the meanings and applications of various portions of Matthew 24 and 25 have already been changed, and the timing of various prophesied events and illustrations have changed. Most recently, the meaning and identification of the "faithful and discreet slave" has changed. And the definition of "generation" has changed about half-a-dozen times. This doesn't mean that the current understandings are impossible, of course, only that it has become less likely from the point of view of reason and reasonableness.
Besides, for most of the years of teaching this doctrine, we have had the flexibility of extending the "1914 generation" from a possible 40 years, up to 70, then 75, then 80 years. And this has been applied to teenagers who saw 1914, 10-year-olds who saw 1914, then even newborns who saw 1914. With every one of these options already tried and stretched to their limits, we finally were forced to convert the meaning of generation from its most common meanings and give it a new "strained" meaning that has no other Biblical parallel. (See Exodus 1:6; Matthew 1:17; 16:4; 23:36; Luke 11:50)
But that flexibility is still seen as the last reason for hope that the Watch Tower Society might have still been correct in hanging on to 1914. Since the Bible says that a lifespan is 70 or 80 years and 1914 + 80 = 1994, the "generation" doctrine in its original form (1943) could remain stable until about 1994. Of course, a lifespan could technically reach to 120 years or more, and Gen 6:3 even gives vague support to the idea that the "1914 generation" could last 120 years, until 2034.
The current alternative solution is to make the generation out of the length of two lifespans, which technically could be double 120 years, or nearly 240 years from 1914. That would have had the potential to reach to the year 2154 (1914+240) except for the caveat that it can, by its new definition, only refer to anointed persons who discerned the sign in 1914 and whose lives overlapped (technically, by as little as one second) with the lifespan of another anointed person representing the second group. If persons from each group don't really discern their own "anointing" until age 20, for example, this would effectively remove 40 years from the overall maximum. 1914+120-20+120-20 = 2114. We could also assume a possible lifespan of more than 120 years, but otherwise, the new two-lifespan generation could potentially make the generation last 200 years. This "technical maximum" is not promoted currently, because for now we look at examples like Fred Franz who was part of that original generation already anointed and who saw the sign, and the typical example of an anointed brother who was apparently "anointed" prior to Franz' death in 1992 would be someone like Governing Body member, Brother Sanderson, who was born in 1965, baptized in 1975, and was already a "special pioneer" in 1991. His is currently 52.
However, the generation problem is just one more problem now which we can add onto the list of all the other points that make up the 1914 doctrine. Here are several points related to 1914 that appear problematic from a Scriptural point of view:
All evidence shows the 1914 date is wrong when trying to base it on the destruction of Jerusalem. (Daniel 1:1; 2 Chron 36:1-22; Jer 25:8-12; Zech 1:12, 7:4; Ezra 3:10-13) Paul said that Jesus sat at God's right hand in the first century and that he already began ruling as king at that time. (1 Cor 15:25) Jesus said not to be fooled by the idea that wars and rumors of wars would be the start of a "sign" (Matt 24:4,5) Jesus said that the "parousia" would be as visible as lightning (Matt 24:27). He spoke against people who might say he had returned but was currently not visible. (Matt 24:23-26) Jesus said that his "parousia" would come as a surprise to the faithful, not that they would discern the time of the parousia decades in advance. (Matt 24:36-42) Jesus said that the kingdom would not be indicated by "signs" (Luke 17:20, almost any translation except NWT in this case) The "synteleia" (end of all things together) refers to a concluding event, not an extended period of time (Matt 28:20) Jesus was already called ruler, King and even "King of Kings" in the first century. (1 Tim 6:15, Heb 7:2,17; Rev 1:5; 17:14) Wicked, beastly King Nebuchadnezzar's insanity and humiliation does not represent Jesus as the "lowliest one of mankind." (Heb 1:5,6; 2:10,11; Daniel 4:23-25; cf. Heb 2:7; 1 Pet 3:17,18) The demise of a Gentile kingdom cannot rightly represent the time of the rise of the Gentile kingdoms (Daniel 4:26,27) The Gentile kings did not meet their demise in 1914. (Rev 2:25,26) The time assigned to the Gentile Times that Jesus spoke about in Luke 21:24 is already given as 3.5 times, not 7 times (Revelation 11:2,3) The Devil was already brought down from "heaven" in the first century. (1 John 2:14,15; 1 Pet 5:8; Luke 10:18; Heb 2:14) The Bible says that the "last days" began in the first century. (Acts 2:14-20; 2 Tim 3:1-17; 1 Peter 3:3-5; Heb 1:2, almost any translation except NWT in this case.)

I did not follow the conversation from the beginning so I'm not sure of the purpose of this discussion.
From personal experience I know that this date is often mentioned to corroborate or invalidate an alleged calculation of the "seven times" of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. If this is the final purpose of this discussion, then I believe that there are much more important questions.
If the purpose of this discussion is a "historical curiosity", then it is interesting.
If I were a historian, then it would be very important to understand how and where to place the events; study the evidence in favor and the contrary evidence.
As for our beliefs, however, I believe that a Christian should ask himself a more profound and important question.
The Bible book of Daniel, when it spoke of the seven times, refers to the establishment of God's Kingdom?
The question is very simple: what is the use of making a thousand discussions on a historical date if the object of the question is another?
If Daniel chapter 4 is not talking about the establishment of the Kingdom of God but of something else, is it really important to find out an exact date for a wrong event?
Twenty years more or less really do a difference if the interpretation of final event is wrong?
Good reflections to everyone
 

No need to. Jeremiah explained why the 70 years need not be related to the destruction of Jerusalem. It was pretty obvious, no doubt, that nations served Babylon over a period of Babylon's 70 years of domination. (Can I assume you might still get to that question I asked you about the explanation of Jeremiah 25 in the Isaiah book?)
Also, of course, Thiele takes Zedekiah's 11th year (and 4th month) as part of a Nisan-to-Nisan year which also influences his acceptance of 586 as the destruction of Jerusalem. I think Thiele is still an excellent resource for this time period. He is another good resource to show why 607 has no evidence behind it for Jerusalem's destruction.

No, that's not true, and that's the problem. The reader is NOT advised. That's a form of academic dishonesty.
Here is one of literally HUNDREDS of examples of this in our literature:
*** it-2 p. 481 Nebuchadnezzar ***
One fragmentary Babylonian text, dated to Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year (588 B.C.E.), does, in fact, mention a campaign against Egypt. (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by J. Pritchard, 1974, p. 308) You might know better, of course, but don't you think that some of the brothers will read this line in the "Insight" book under "Nebuchadnezzar" and get the impression that a well-researched resource about Babylonian texts indicates that Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year was 588 B.C.E.?
It's amazing (and shameful) that our publications still do this repeatedly. The referenced book by Pritchard is 100% aware that all the evidence consistently points to 568 for Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, and therefore 587/6 for his 19th year (not 607). There is only one reason that the Watchtower publications sneaks 588 in there without any explanation about how the book they referenced actually rejects this date. It's because 588 is the date that would allow 607 to work which would allow 1914 to work. We should not have to depend on dishonesty and slick tricks like this. If the evidence stood on its own, we would be happy to point to the evidence, instead of trying to denigrate the evidence, and then "dishonestly" forget to tell the readers that it's this same denigrated evidence that we rely on for 607.

I will be honest in a debate whether any other party in a debate is honest or not. That is what I meant when I said it is not a two-way street, at least for me. Debates often end up highlighting the academic dishonesty or false foundations of another person's theory. Academic dishonesty can often be the result of giving too much weight to a certain interpretation and then using logical fallacies to bolster the false claims. So academic dishonesty is not always a "personal" dishonesty, but can come about through sloppiness in research, misuse of evidence, being fooled by someone else's mistakes, etc.
Thanks for admitting that.
This is pretty much true. A lot of people make claims that turn out to be untrue, even if they make perfect sense to a lot of people. I have heard people who believe the chronology of the "Great Week" mentioned below (from http://prophecycorner.theforeverfamily.com/chron.html )
Since it is thought that 6,000 years would go by before the sabbatical millennial Day of the Lord begins, some people have thought that the 6,000th year since Adam's creation would be about 2,000 A.D. I have heard it said that from Adam to Abraham was 2,000 years and from Abraham to Christ was 2,000 years. Like the "Oslo" schema, it's more of a "scheme" than a chronology, but some will fight for it as if it were the only true Bible chronology, and anything different is just a secular falsehood. In the same way, some will also fight to make Cyrus' Edict begin around 460 B.C.E. so that they can make the 70 weeks of years match with their supposedly more "obvious" interpretation of Daniel. There are a lot of claims about Bible chronology, just like several of the old Watchtower claims, that have necessarily been abandoned by now for obvious reasons.
That book contains many claims that are shamefully wrong. Note this one on the page you quoted:
It is because of making the mistake of dating the beginning of the seventy-year period for the desolation of Jerusalem and the land of Judah after King Jehoiakim reigned at Jerusalem but three years that the chronologers in Christendom throw their time schedule of history at least nineteen years out of order, shortening up the stream of time by that many years. They do this because of trying to harmonize the Bible records with the astronomical Canon of Claudius Ptolemy, an Alexandrian or Egyptian astronomer of the second century after Christ, but whose system of astronomy has long since been exploded. In this we do not go along with such chronologers. For a time, the WTS had relied on the king list matching Claudius Ptolemy's to get 539. People noticed the mistake right away. In fact, one letter came in to the Watch Tower the year before the book came out. They should have known better than to print this nonsense.
For example, Max Hatton wrote the Watch Tower Society on June 10, 1962. This letter also contained information about an even earlier letter sent to the Watch Tower Society on July 9, 1959. The 1962 letter says in part:
To date our arguments have been largely concerned with the 70 years mentioned by Jeremiah. I am confident that with the aid of the Societies [sic] publications and some private research I have and will have no real difficulties with this portion of the discussion. It seems that the next item for discussion will inevitably be whether the period of 70 years literal desolation can be accommodated by a Chronological arrangement for the period. As far as I have been able to ascertain the basis for the Chronology, popularly accepted, for the years 747 B.C., to the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. and further on, is the Canon of Ptolemy. It therefore seems obvious that one cannot accept the record of the 70 year desolation and at the same time accept the Canon as being an accurate record. In rejecting the Canon completely, a problem seems to arise, because, as far as I am aware, the date for the destruction of Babylon in 539 B.C. per medium of the Chronological arrangement for which Ptolemy's Canon is the basis. . . . I would greatly appreciate your advice then, whether 539 B.C. can be accurately calculated by some other means entirely independent of the Canon, such as a continuous list of kings with their Accession years calculated by the length of their reign, based on some other evidence. (Either Bible or Secular.) I fully appreciate the advice in the Watchtower of 1st December, 1946 that an eclipse of the moon is not sufficient data by which to locate the year of a certain event, however the "Secretary of the Australian Institute of Archaeology" has advised me that "Ptolemy's Canon is based on a much wider range of astronomical data, the details of which are recorded in his Almagest. It is necessary to correlate the details he gives in his canon with dates he has calculated in other works. The sum result of this is that his canon appears to be accurate within all reasonable limits."  . . . Could I be advised please in what respects the Society considers the Canon to be in error and also reasonable grounds to substantiate such a claim? That is only a small part of the letter, without the original paragraph breaks from the letter. The Watchtower wrote back to Brother Hatton on June 28, 1962. That letter gave some of the best evidence ever that the Society simply did not understand the claims they were making or that, less likely one hopes, they were willing to be very dishonest. Brother Hatton's next response naturally contained more questions, and even more research, and the Society's next letter, told him that they didn't have time to stop for such a research project with the current preparation for the 1963 "Everlasting Good News" assembly coming out (at which the Babylon book would be released). The following exchange of letters shows that the Society was now on the defensive with nowhere to turn. The Babylon book only made the matters worse because the Society was obviously "digging in its heels" on things they had no right to claim. They asked him to give less attention to chronology. The Society told him that if he didn't agree he could still point persons to the place in the Society's publications where such explanations were given, even if he had mental reservations. By July 1965, the Society had disfellowshipped both Brother Hatton and his wife for apostasy. His wife had possibly never said anything but it was suspected that she supported her husband. 
 

In fact, both dates conform to the exact same set of sources. They are both part of the same NB chronology which is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence from all the archaeological and astronomical sources. You could use 8 sources and come up with both 539 and 587 as correct, and you use only four of those sources and still come up with both dates as correct. You could also dismiss those 4 you just used, and use the other 4 and still see that both dates are correct. You simply cannot accept the data for 539 without also accepting the data for 587.

In fact, both dates conform to the exact same set of sources. They are both part of the same NB chronology which is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence from all the archaeological and astronomical sources. You could use 8 sources and come up with both 539 and 587 as correct, and you use only four of those sources and still come up with both dates as correct. You could also dismiss those 4 you just used, and use the other 4 and still see that both dates are correct. You simply cannot accept the data for 539 without also accepting the data for 587.

For many years now, the Watchtower has actually been consistent in acknowledging that Ptolemy's canon "may" be accurate, but that we might not be able to rely on it for everything. Almost every reference to Ptolemy, especially in the Insight book, has a somewhat negative side added to it:
*** it-1 p. 456 Chronology ***
Finally, as in the case of Ptolemy, even though the astronomical information (as now interpreted and understood) on the texts discovered is basically accurate, this does not prove . . .
*** it-1 p. 456 Chronology ***
These astronomical diaries contain references to the reigns of certain kings and appear to coincide with the figures given in Ptolemy’s canon. While to some this might seem like incontrovertible evidence, there are factors greatly reducing its strength.
Following up on the point I was making about 539 BCE, 607 BCE, 29 CE, etc, all being secular dates, this is admitted under that same topic heading in the Insight Book:
*** it-1 p. 458 Chronology ***
To make the count in terms of modern calendar dating, we must use some fixed point or pivotal date with which to commence, that is, a date in history that has sound basis for acceptance and that corresponds with a particular event recorded in the Bible. From this date as a pivotal point we can figure backward or forward and assign calendar dates to many of the events referred to in the Bible.
One such date, harmonizing with both Biblical and secular history, is the year 29 C.E., the early months of which were in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, who was named emperor by the Roman Senate on September 15, 14 C.E. (Gregorian calendar). It was in the year 29 C.E. that John the Baptizer began his preaching and also when, perhaps about six months later, he baptized Jesus.—Lu 3:1-3, 21, 23; 1:36.
Another date that can be used as a pivotal point is the year 539 B.C.E., supported by various historical sources as the year for the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus the Persian. (Secular sources for Cyrus’ reign include Diodorus, Africanus, Eusebius, and Ptolemy, as well as the Babylonian tablets.)
Of course, someone could read that, especially the last paragraph, and think that 539 BCE for the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus is somehow more supported by various historical sources than is 587 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem.  In fact, 587 BCE for Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year is part of the same Neo-Babylonian chronological system, supported by the same sets (and types) of sources. If the first year of the conquest of Cyrus is a pivotal date, then so is Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year -- for the same reasons.
The quote that Eoin included was:
*** it-1 p. 454 Chronology ***
The date of 539 B.C.E. for the fall of Babylon can be arrived at not only by Ptolemy’s canon but by other sources as well.
This is very accurate, of course, but It would have been exactly as accurate for the Insight book to have said this:
The date of 587 B.C.E. for the fall of Jerusalem can be arrived at not only by Ptolemy’s canon but by other sources as well.
As it turns out, in fact, there are additional sources that add to the evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year (587 BCE), so that the evidence for 587 BCE could even be said to be a little better than the evidence for 539 BCE, but it doesn't matter because both are equally accurate. Of course, the only reason we focus only on 539 BCE is because we reject 587 BCE.
This argument is equally true in the opposite direction. Both 587 BCE and 539 BCE are also supported by "astronomical diaries" which evidently contain sometimes daily observations of priests or astronomers of the royal court. A specific diary that supports 587 BCE has sometimes been criticized by the WTS for 4 major weaknesses. Without even mentioning the details of those weaknesses, it turns out that all 4 of them are the exact same weaknesses for the diary that supports 539 BCE.
For anyone who might not be aware, these astronomical diaries contain information that can look something like the following:
10th Year of King "So-and-So"
On the night of April 13, Saturn passed within 3 fingers of the moon as it disappeared at the horizon On the night of April 15, the upper star of the head of the Scorpion passed within 2 fingers of the moon. On the morning of April 16, this is the last day this month when the moon set before sunrise. The Euphrates River was at a height of 4 today. On the evening of April 19, there was a lunar eclipse. In 10 degrees of the night it made an eclipse of 4 fingers, 2 fingers remained to totality, it was obscured on the northeast side when it began. It usually turns out that various abbreviations had developed for many of the astronomical phrases. But the main point is that sometimes there was not enough information for a specific day, and sometimes there was plenty of information, but when all of the recorded data was put together, it could often be matched to a certain year where such phenomena would not be repeated again for a thousand years.
What's more important is that all these diaries that contain enough information not only fit the time period that is already known about the various kings identified, they also match the exact year already identified from other sources. Also, they fit each other. There are sometimes two known diaries for the same king, covering separated years. It's as if the example above called: "10th Year of King So-and-So" was identified as 405 BCE and then another diary was found for the same king and it was called "15th Year of King So-and-So" and its astronomical phenomena exactly matched 400 BCE.
Unfortunately there aren't so many of these detailed diaries from the time of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, but the ones we do have can still be matched to their year both from the astronomical data and what we already know about their chronology from other sources.
Also, even if we could completely discredit Ptolemy's canon, which we can't, we don't need it anyway for either the 539 BCE date or the 587 BCE date. We get good evidence for both those dates, even without Ptolemy. There is no such evidence from any source that supports 607 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem.
 
 

[Part One - Just a little more background]
The Bible contains no dates, at least not anything like the dates we use today. There is no such thing as a date like 539 BC, or 607 BCE, or 29 CE, or AD 33, or 70 CE, or 1914. The only types of dates that the Bible uses are expressions like:
(Genesis 5:21-27) 21 Eʹnoch lived for 65 years and then became father to Me·thuʹse·lah. 22 After becoming father to Me·thuʹse·lah, Eʹnoch continued to walk with the true God for 300 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 23 So all the days of Eʹnoch amounted to 365 years. 24 Eʹnoch kept walking with the true God. Then he was no more, for God took him. 25 Me·thuʹse·lah lived for 187 years and then became father to Laʹmech. 26 After becoming father to Laʹmech, Me·thuʹse·lah lived for 782 years. And he became father to sons and daughters. 27 So all the days of Me·thuʹse·lah amounted to 969 years, and then he died.
(1 Kings 15:25-34) 25 Naʹdab the son of Jer·o·boʹam became king over Israel in the second year of King Aʹsa of Judah, and he reigned over Israel for two years. 26 He kept doing what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah . . .  . . . 33  In the third year of King Aʹsa of Judah, Baʹa·sha the son of A·hiʹjah became king in Tirʹzah over all Israel and reigned for 24 years. 34  But he kept doing what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, and he walked in the way of Jer·o·boʹam and in his sin that he caused Israel to commit.
A portion of the Bible therefore includes a chronology system, that appears to track the number of years from Adam to Noah (and the Flood). Another portion appears to track the number of years from Noah (through Shem) to Abraham. Other sections track the time from Abraham to the Exodus. Then it gets a bit murky. Even so we know we are not too many years off between the Exodus and the Judges and then to King Saul and David. There is a also a lot of information to help track the time from David through the last Judean King Zedekiah. But even these "synchronisms" between the lines of kings leaves several open questions, which can be interpreted in various ways. Of course, not long after Zedekiah and the return of the Jews from Babylon to Judea & Israel, it gets murky again. And we have no chronology to track the time from, say, Zedekiah until Jesus is born.
In other words, you could know that Methuselah was born a certain number of years after Adam was created, or even that Shem or Abraham was born a certain number of years after Adam was created. but you would still have no idea when Adam was created, or what year the Flood arrived. We also have those murky or incomplete portions. That means that we know, for example, that Jereboam's son Nadab became king over Israel in the second year of King Asa of Judah, but we don't know how long that was after Adam or Noah or Abraham.
Still, the main point is that even if we did have a perfectly linked chronology from Adam through Zedekiah, such as the one seen in Genesis 5 or 1 Kings 15, above, we would still have no way to tell how long ago that time period started or ended. We would not be able to identify specific years, only relative years.
The only way we can start attaching specific years, like 4 BCE, or 70 CE, or 539 BCE to any of these "relative dates" is if we decide that we will accept non-Biblical dates, otherwise known as secular dates.
4 BCE is not a Biblical date, it's a secular date. 33 CE is not a Biblical date, it's a secular date. 607 BCE is not a Biblical date, it's a secular date. 587 BCE is not a Biblical date, it's a secular date 539 BCE is not a Biblical date, it's a secular date. The reason that is important is because the question about whether Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE or 587/6 BCE is often framed as if one of those dates is Biblical and the other is secular. They are both secular! Everyone in the world, incluing historians, scientists, archaeologists, Bible scholars, the Watch Tower Society and the Governing Body must rely completely on secular dates to figure out how many years ago a Biblical event might have happened. 
So what do we do?
We need to pick a secular date that we think we can trust and begin trying to link Biblical events to it.  Then we see if we can't create a chain of linked events backwards and forward from there. In fact, we need to pick several secular dates because the Bible's relative chronology does not really link the time around Adam, Noah and Abraham all the way through the time of the Judges and Kings. And after the Temple is rebuilt after the time of Ezra, the timeline stops again, so we'd need to find another secular date to see if we can match the time of Jesus birth, baptism, death, and any other events in the Christian Greek Scriptures.
We need to find some secular dates that we can trust! This is exactly where 539 BCE becomes so interesting. That's the time when Cyrus conquers Babylon, right? Yes, and it seems to be a perfectly good secular date for that event. If we accept it, we also get a pretty good idea when Jerusalem was destroyed. In fact, by accepting 539 BCE we ARE accepting the same secular chronology that pinpoints the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year.
(2 Kings 25:8, 9) 8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that is, in the 19th year of King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar the king of Babylon, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard, the servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He burned down the house of Jehovah, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; he also burned down the house of every prominent man.
This is the whole problem! We like 539 BCE, as the final year of a Babylonian king, but don't want Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year to be 587 BCE. We want his 19th year to be 607 BCE, instead. But we have a lot of trouble taking one without the other. In fact, if we say that Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year must be 607 BCE, then that's the same thing as saying that Cyrus conquered Babylon in 559 BCE instead of 539 BCE.
It makes no sense to say one is Biblical and one is secular. They are both secular and if you say you trust that 539 BCE is correct, then that's also the same as saying you accept that 587/6 BCE, NOT 607 BCE, is the destruction of Jerusalem. Therefore the WTS has always been looking for a way to try to accept one part of the secular chronology without accepting another part of the same chronology.  Those attempts have never worked out, but this is what we'll need to discuss next.
 
 

(Introductory Comments)
Although the Watchtower article says that we should take an interest, some JWs believe that questioning the 607 date is tantamount to apostasy. We shouldn't question the Governing Body or the "faithful and discreet slave." If we question the 607 date we are, perhaps, showing too much pride in our own understanding.
These are legitimate concerns for all of us. And it's one of the reasons that very few of us even understand the reason that such a question might come up in the first place. A discussion was already begun on the subject, but it quickly devolved into a discussion that showed more concern about the questioner(s) rather than the evidence itself. I take my own share of the blame for that problem. That's why, I'm restarting the question again, but this time we'll keep the focus only on evaluating the evidence, both Biblical and archaeological. I hope more people join in, and everyone is welcome, of course, but this time I think we can keep it moderated so that only comments about the evidence remain in the discussion. 

You were claiming that our (WTS) theory was impossible when you tried to add another 20 years to the Neo-Babylonian timeline at a point during Nebuchadnezzar's reign. You suggested Zedekiah's 11th year. You create a contradiction for yourself precisely because the Bible synchronizes the reigns of the last kings of Judah in a way that fits Ptolemy's Canon, and the Babylonian Chronicles and the combined evidence from thousands of clay tablets, along with the astronomical diaries.
Actually it is your problem if you are the one interpreting an idea in a way that contradicts all the evidence. Especially since you already admitted that many lines of evidence and thousands of tablets already represent the NB chronology. It's the same as if you wanted to make World War 1 last for parts of 8 years instead of parts of 5 years. If you say that there are three years of history about WW1 missing, then you would have to be the one to figure out where these new years should be inserted.
There is nothing for me to solve here. I see that all the years are already accounted for, and that they already fit the Bible evidence very well. I am happy that the Bible account is corroborated by the historical accounts and evidence from archaeology.
I never mentioned Jehoiakim. I only referred to Jehoiachin. (Also called Jeconiah) It's easy to confuse them.
I looked up several of your past discussions here and elsewhere. I have seen from these past discussions that you typically don't try to solve any of the chronological problems related to this matter. I have noticed a common pattern of trying to imply that it is the other person who has the problem to solve. You even do that in this very post I am responding to. Apparently, you also have made use of a tactic of abandoning a problem when it is clear that you have failed to address it, and then disappearing and coming back at some later point and claiming that you previously solved the problem or "won the argument" that you had abandoned. You seem to give the impression that everything must start all over "from scratch" even after the evidence against your position was already made clear in your last attempt.   
But evidently the most common tactic, and the one I am trying to understand in this current thread, too, is this tendency to offer completely illogical nonsense as if it is relevant to the questions and claims being made. There appears to be a lot of bluster and obfuscation and I can't always tell if it's on purpose. If it is, I don't know who you would be trying to bluster here.
But if you were truly looking for a simple and clear question, in a presentation of facts without references, then I could oblige that, too. But first I'd like to ask if you would address any of the very simple questions that have already been brought up.
One, for example, was:
What is the year you get for the beginning of the 70 years of Babylonian domination assuming you agree with the Watch Tower Society's assessment about these 70 years that ended in 539 B.C.E.? (See the previous post for the references to Jeremiah 25:8-27 in chapter 19 of Isaiah's Prophecy.) If you still insist that this date is "nonsense," as you called it, then please explain why you think the Society's idea here is nonsense, and why it's still on JW.ORG?

Have you written the Watchtower Society to tell them that this claim is "nonsense"?
*** ip-1 chap. 19 p. 253 par. 21 Jehovah Profanes the Pride of Tyre ***
True to the prophecy, for the duration of “one king”—the Babylonian Empire—the island-city of Tyre will not be an important financial power. 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 you don't have the Watchtower Library CD/DVD installed just click the link to jw.org here: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102000039 and scroll down to paragraph 21 (page 256) to see the same point.
So, are you saying you do not agree with the assessment of the Watchtower Society that the 70 years of Babylonia's greatest domination ends in 539 B.C.E.?  If Babylon's 70 years of domination ended in 539, then when did it begin? I get 539+70=609.
 Unless you can offer a different answer, I'll have to assume that you get the same thing. So why do you call this claim "nonsense"? Usually, you appear to be defending what's on JW.ORG.
Yes. I see that JW.ORG also does something just like what you say Carl Jonsson did. Do you think that JW.ORG got this idea from Carl Jonsson? Jonsson wrote about 15 years before the "Isaiah's Prophecy" book was written in 2000?
You seem confused about the reason that there is any supposed "conflict" over whether Jerusalem fell in 586 or 587. The reason is explained on JW.ORG and it has absolutely nothing to do with different chronologies for the divided monarchy. The Bible lists both the 18th and 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar for what appears to be the same Jerusalem event. It can simply be a matter of whether the Bible is including Nebuchadnezzar's accession year when referring to the Jerusalem event.
*** 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. The scriptures quoted are as follows:
(Jeremiah 52:29) In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem. (2 Kings 25:8, 9) In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that is, in the 19th year of King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar the king of Babylon, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard, the servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He burned down the house of Jehovah, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; . . .
I know you already knew this from a previous conversation.

You were using the term "honesty is a two-way street" as if it were an excuse to explain why you made a false claim. In a "debate" you don't get to make false claims and then make excuses for it. You should be honest no matter what you think of the other person's evidence.
There is no gap in the NB evidence. You don't create a gap in another set of evidence by simply making a claim that one exists:
Let's say that I have a coin collection of all the different types of United States coins made during World War 1: a 1914 penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half-dollar, silver dollar, gold quarter-eagle, gold half-eagle, etc., etc., from each of the applicable locations where coins are officially minted. Let's say that  I have an entire set not just from 1914, but also from 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918. Now you come along and tell me that there is a three-year gap in my WW1 coin collection. But that doesn't create a gap in my collection. It does not create a gap in the evidence for when WW1 started and ended. It just creates a gap in your credibility.
If I ask you where this supposed three-year gap might be placed, you could say that the extra three years should be placed between 1916 and 1917. Again, this claim is only a gap in your own credibility and it has no effect on the evidence for what coins were made during World War 1 and it has no effect on the evidence for the actual years of World War 1. It's just a claim. Even if it came from your beloved grandfather who has never told a lie before, it still doesn't mean that the start of World War 1 must now be reset to 1911 instead of 1914.
You could insist that there must be a three-year gap because your grandfather actually told you that World War 1 started in 1911. He is so sure of it that he has also pushed back the beginning of the U.S. Civil war to 1858 instead of 1861, and the U.S. Declaration of Independence from Britain to July 4, 1773 instead of 1776. But this would only mean that you (and your grandfather) have a gap. It does not produce any gap in United States chronology or coinage.
We are certainly not discussing any gap in the NB evidence itself, but a gap in someone else's claim about it. We are discussing the idea that you believe there is a gap somewhere in the NB, but you still don't even know exactly where that gap should be placed. We are in exactly the same type situation that would be created if you and your grandfather were claiming that World War 1 started in 1911 instead of 1914, assuming that you agreed that it ended in 1918, but that WW1 covered parts of 8 different years (1911-1918) instead of parts of 5 different years (1914-1918). But you still don't know where the current evidence for WW1 from 1914 to 1918 went wrong. Perhaps the three years of information you need to add should be inserted between the current evidence for 1916 and 1917. Or between the current evidence for 1917 and 1918. Or perhaps the three years should be added between February 3, 1915 and February 4, 1915.
The history of these Watchtower dates that you are relying on is fuzzy. The reasons the Watchtower has needed them to be fuzzy becomes sharp and clear when you study the history of the Watchtower's chronology claims more closely. And you don't even need the older publications because the CURRENT "Insight" book admits that the two year difference between 539 and 537 is based on something that "is very probable." Current publications put the third year of Cyrus at 536, but the first year of Cyrus is pushed as closely as possible toward the spring of 537. Obviously, the WTS does this, even though Cyrus had the authority to release captives in 539 and 538, but we just don't want any Jews coming back in 539 or 538,  as that would throw off 1914 by throwing off 607 by a year or two. In the past, we allowed them to come back in 536 because we thought that was the first year of Cyrus (and therefore put Jerusalem's destruction in 606). If we were arguing for the same two-year-plus delay that we argue for now in the WTS publications, then the Jews might not be back home until 534 or even 533. The fuzziness has worked in favor of the WTS to keep 1914 afloat.
The WTS was always willing to re-adjust the old dates, although to be fair, the solution for a while was to change 1914 to 1915. Both Russell and Rutherford began using 1915 as the new end of the Gentile Times even until a few years after 1914.
During the time of trouble, closing this age, they will be exalted to power, but their "reign" of righteousness over the world could not precede A.D. 1915—when the Times of the Gentiles have expired. (The Time Is At Hand, p.81.) the "battle of the great day of God Almighty" (Rev. 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1915, with the complete overthrow of earth's present rulership, is already commenced. (ibid, p.101)
Here's what we the WTS said when they were first learning about the "zero year" problem in the Watch Tower from December 1912. By 1914 the WTS "discerned" that there WAS a zero year, but still kept referring to October 1915 as the end of the Gentile Times when it looked like 1914 wasn't working out. Apparently, they misunderstood the quote in the Encylopedia Britannica, below, referring to a common misunderstanding that is still made today by amateur astronomers. Then in 1943, the WTS "discerned" that there was NO zero year.:
---------quote from Watch Tower, December 1912, p. 377 [new paragraphs shown as bullet points]---------------
Whether Dionysius began his A.D. period January 1st, A.D. 1, or whether he began it January 1st, A.D. 0, we may not be sure; neither may we feel too certain whether he began the B.C. dates December 31st, B.C. 0, or December 31st, B.C. 1. For all ordinary purposes this question would be rather immaterial. But it has a very important bearing on our calculation of Gentile Times. . . . Coming now to a very critical examination of the date 536 B.C., there is an open question: Shall we call it 536 full years to A.D., or 434 [sic] full years? The difference in time between October 1st and January 1st would be the fourth of a year; hence our query is respecting 536-1/4 or 535-1/4 years B.C. What is the proper method of calculation, is in dispute. If we count the first year B.C. as 0, then the date 536-1/4 B.C. is the proper one for the end of the seventy years of captivity. But if we begin to reckon it by counting the first year before the Christian era as B.C. 1, then evidently the desolation ended 535-1/4 years B.C. As to the methods of counting, Encyclopaedia Britannica says, "Astronomers denote the year which preceded the first of our era as 0 and the year previous to that as B.C. 1--the previous year B.C. 2, and so on." Whichever of these ways we undertake to calculate the matter the difference between the results is one year. The seventy years of Jewish captivity ended October, 536 B.C., and if there were 536-1/4 years B.C., then to complete the 2,520 years' cycle of the Times of the Gentiles would require 1913-3/4 years of A.D., or to October, 1914. But if the other way of reckoning were used, then there were but 535-1/4 years of the period B.C., and the remainder of the 2,520 years would reach to A.D., 1914-3/4 years, otherwise October, 1915.  

Again, I will quote from a source that attempts to support the Bible, but evidently with no particular stake, one way or another, in the Watchtower's version. Below I am quoting two paragraphs from http://bibletruthsandprophecies.com/index.php?title=Jeconiah
Jeconiah is of course the same as Jehoiachin:
 
-------------- start of quote from website ---------------
Reign
Jeconiah reigned three months and ten days, from December 9, 598 to March 15/16, 597 BC. He succeeded Jehoiakim as king of Judah[2Ki.24:6] in December 598, after raiders from surrounding lands invaded Jerusalem[2Ki.24:2] and killed his father. It is likely that the king of Babylon was behind this effort, as a response to Jehoiakim's revolt, starting sometime after 601 BC. Three months and ten days after Jeconiah became king, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar II seized Jerusalem. The intention was to take high class Judahite captives and assimilate them into Babylonian society. On March 15/16th, 597 BC,[5]:217 Jeconiah, his entire household and three thousand Jews, were exiled to Babylon.
Release from captivity
According to 2 Kings 25:27, Jeconiah was released from prison "in the 37th year of the exile", in the year that Amel-Marduk (Evil-Merodach) came to the throne. Babylonian records show that Amel-Marduk began his reign in October 562 BC.[8] According to 2 Kings 25:27, Jeconiah was released from prison "on the 27th day of the twelfth month", during March of 561 BC. This indicates the first year of captivity to be 598/597 BC, according to Judah's Tishri-based calendar. The 37th year of captivity was thus, by Judean reckoning, the year that began in Tishri of 562, consistent with the synchronism to the accession year of Amel-Marduk given in Babylonian records.
------------- end of quote from website --------------------

Well, I'll look into how dutifully the problem has been corrected. Let's hope it's duty-free, considering where you've been.
So, you are saying that the 20 years can be inserted altogether in one piece starting in Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year, which was also the same point as King Zedekiah's 11th year. This would, of course, mean that Nebuchadnezzar did not just rule for 43 years, but for 63 years. This is where those 10,000 tablets could really help out your theory. There are plenty of tablets representing every year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign from his first to his 43rd, but you have absolutely zero for every one of these extra 20 years.
The evidence from thousands of tablets is actually definitive enough. But you would also have an  bigger problem, the Bible itself:
Notice that if your dates were correct then Jehoiachin would have surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 which you would call 617, assuming this 20-year gap theory was correct. This is admitted in the "Insight" book:
*** it-1 p. 1267 Jehoiachin ***
It appears that Jehoiakim died during this siege and Jehoiachin ascended the throne of Judah. His rule ended, however, a mere three months and ten days later, when he surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar in 617 B.C.E.  . . .  In fulfillment of Jehovah’s word through Jeremiah, he was taken into Babylonian exile. (Jer 22:24-27; 24:1; 27:19, 20; 29:1, 2) Other members of the royal household, court officials, craftsmen, and warriors were also exiled.—2Ki 24:14-16;
(2 Kings 25:27) 27 And in the 37th year of the exile of King Je·hoi?a·chin of Judah, in the 12th month, on the 27th day of the month, King E?vil-mer?o·dach of Babylon, in the year he became king, released King Je·hoi?a·chin of Judah from prison. *** it-1 p. 1267 Jehoiachin ***
In the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s exile, Ezekiel began his prophetic work. (Eze 1:2) About 32 years later, evidently in 580 B.C.E., Jehoiachin was released from prison by Nebuchadnezzar’s successor Evil-merodach (Awil-Marduk) and given a position of favor above all the other captive kings. Thereafter he ate at Evil-merodach’s table and received a daily allowance.—2Ki 25:27-30; Jer 52:31-34. In other words, the Bible shows that your theory is impossible because the Bible confirms that the secular tablets are correct in giving Nebuchadnezzar only 43 years. You can't squeeze out more than 43 years in his reign, if Evil-Merodach became king in the 37th year of Jehoiachin's exile. The Bible also, therefore, agrees with "Ptolemy's Canon" and the evidence from all the astronomical tablets here, too.