Anna

You can answer your own question by reading the actual Bible passage you are referring to and ask: Was Jesus saying he "controlled" all behaviour and decisions in the congregation? Or was it that the elders were responsible to use the authority granted to them in harmony with his direction and God's Word? What was going on in the congregations even while he was speaking? (Answer: apostasy, immorality, lukewarm Christianity...) Did Jesus cause or control that? Or what happened soon after that? (Answer: A great apostasy that started from within the congregation). Can we rightly blame Jesus for that as well? How do other factors come into play, such as freedom of choice; imperfection; recognizing (or not) the leadings of God's spirit; scriptures like 1 Timothy 5:24... Added to this is the fact that even while men in authority use their authority to judge others, they themselves are judged and held accountable. 

It finally appears that we are winding down and I like that @b4ucuhear has already tried to reduce this conversation to only the most important points. However, there is still a chance that someone will read what @César Chávez said, and begin to believe that there are now some new scholars that agree with the Watchtower chronology, which Cesar claims 'has been correct all along.'
Let's just make this simple in case others might look at what was written here and get confused. You are pretending that the Watchtower has been "correct all along" and your evidence is supposed to be found among these six "new" sources. From what I have found so far, the folowing is more accurate:
"New Chronology" Scholar Agrees w/ WTS for Jerusalem destruction - Nebuchadnezzar's 18th/19th year as 607-606 Agrees with COJ, Wiseman, Grayson - Nebuchadnezzar's 18th/19th year as 587-586 Jonathan Stokl Disagrees with Watchtower dates Agrees with COJ, Wiseman, etc. Caroline Waerzeggers Disagrees with Watchtower dates Agrees with COJ, Wiseman, etc. Gary Knoppers Disagrees with Watchtower dates Agrees with COJ, Wiseman, etc.  Peter Ackroyd Disagrees with Watchtower dates Agrees with COJ, Wiseman, etc. Lester Grabbe Disagrees with Watchtower dates Agrees with COJ, Wiseman, etc. Deirdre Fulton Disagrees with Watchtower dates Agrees with COJ, Wiseman, etc. Of course, now you are telling me that I am putting too much emphasis on the word destruction, as if the Watchtower doctrine doesn't emphasize the destruction of Jerusalem.
But here are just a few of the Watchtower references, using only articles from the last 10 years, and some samples from just a few of the books. Who is it, you think, who is fixated on this word destruction?
*** w18 February p. 3 par. 2 Imitate the Faith and Obedience of Noah, Daniel, and Job ***
Apostate Jerusalem was nearing its foretold destruction, which occurred in 607 B.C.E.
*** w16 June p. 16 Questions From Readers ***
apostate Jerusalem prior to its destruction in 607 B.C.E.
*** ws14 7/15 p. 18 par. 9 “You Are My Witnesses” ***
After that, Jehovah continued warning his people until the year 607 before Christ, when Jerusalem was destroyed.
*** w14 7/15 p. 25 par. 9 “You Are My Witnesses” ***
That was 125 years before Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E.
*** w11 3/15 p. 31 par. 14 Keep Awake, as Jeremiah Did ***
Some Jews as well as non-Israelites survived Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E.
*** w11 10/1 p. 26 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part One ***
the year of Jerusalem’s destruction. Why do Jehovah’s Witnesses say that it was 607 B.C.E.?
*** w11 10/1 p. 29 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part One ***
But if the evidence from the inspired Scriptures clearly points to 607 B.C.E. for Jerusalem’s destruction, why do many authorities hold to the date 587 B.C.E.?
*** w11 10/1 p. 31 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part One ***
Counting back from that year would place Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E
*** w11 11/1 p. 25 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two ***
then his 18th year would be 607 B.C.E.—the very year indicated by the Bible’s chronology for the destruction of Jerusalem!
*** w11 11/1 p. 27 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two ***
This, therefore, supports the date of 607 B.C.E. for Jerusalem’s destruction—just as the Bible indicates.
*** w11 11/1 p. 27 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two ***
Those statements strongly indicate that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 B.C.E. As the above evidence shows, that conclusion has some secular support.
*** w09 3/15 p. 14 par. 14 Keep Your Eyes on the Prize ***
In time, the entire nation turned apostate, resulting in its destruction in 607 B.C.E.
*** g 1/11 p. 11 A Book You Can Trust—Part 3 ***
In 607 B.C.E., Babylonian armies destroyed Jerusalem and took the survivors off to Babylon, where they were treated cruelly.
*** g 5/09 p. 11 A Receipt That Corroborates the Bible Record ***
Nebo-sarsechim was one of King Nebuchadnezzar’s commanders at the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.,
*** rr chap. 6 p. 67 par. 13 “The End Is Now Upon You” ***
Thus, both time periods would end in 607 B.C.E., the exact year in which Jerusalem fell and was destroyed, just as Jehovah had foretold.
*** rr chap. 7 p. 74 par. 8 The Nations “Will Have to Know That I Am Jehovah” ***
from the time of the Exodus to the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.
*** rr chap. 8 p. 89 par. 14 “I Will Raise Up One Shepherd” ***
In 607 B.C.E., with the destruction of Jerusalem, the “high” kingdom of Judah centered in Jerusalem was brought low
*** rr chap. 11 p. 126 par. 17 “I Have Appointed You as a Watchman” ***
who spoke to God’s people in the period surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.
*** rr chap. 16 p. 175 par. 9 “Put a Mark on the Foreheads” ***
Ezekiel’s prophecy was fulfilled in 607 B.C.E. when the Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem and its temple.
*** rr chap. 16 p. 178 par. 17 “Put a Mark on the Foreheads” ***
As we saw earlier, those who survived Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E.
*** dp chap. 4 p. 50 par. 8 The Rise and Fall of an Immense Image ***
These words applied to Nebuchadnezzar after Jehovah had used him to destroy Jerusalem, in 607 B.C.E.
*** cl chap. 8 p. 78 par. 5 Restorative Power—Jehovah Is “Making All Things New” ***
Just imagine how faithful Jews felt in 607 B.C.E. when Jerusalem was destroyed.
*** dp chap. 6 p. 96 par. 27 Unraveling the Mystery of the Great Tree ***
If we were to count 2,520 literal days from Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E.,
*** po chap. 2 p. 20 par. 27 The Immortal Possessor of the “Eternal Purpose” ***
God’s protection through the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the armies of Babylon in the year 607 B.C.E.
*** po chap. 14 p. 173 par. 11 Triumph for the “Eternal Purpose” ***
Before the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.
*** jr chap. 15 p. 188 par. 13 “I Cannot Keep Silent” ***
True worshippers were affected by the appalling conditions that prevailed before Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E
So you seem to be conflicted over this fixation the Watchtower has with the word "destruction." But you know you can't admit a conflict with the Watchtower itself, and therefore you "project" that conflictedness onto me. I'm willing to do what I can to help you work through this. I've seen it before with others on unrelated topics. What you might need to do as a start, is to spell out exactly what you think the right solution is. You might not be ready to be definitive, and that's OK, but you should start with what you think is probably correct, and how you think the Watchtower should change their wording so that they don't appear to be "fixated" on this word "destruction." How do you think they should have worded it instead?
If you try to answer that question, I'll know you are serious about researching this issue. If you won't even try, then I'll have to consider the next most likely assumption about your motives. 

An oldie but goodie. Especially when it's appropriate. Its not about "strength of faith or hiding." It's about not stupidly wasting time on nonsense. 
2 Tim. 2:23 "Further, reject foolish and ignorant debates, knowing they produce fights. 24 For the slave of the Lord does not need to fight...showing restraint when wronged, 25 instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed. Perhaps God may give them repentance leading to an accurate knowledge of truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil, seeing that they have been caught alive by him to do his will." 
1 Timothy 6:3 "If any man teaches another doctrine and does not agree with the wholesome instruction, which is from our Lord Jesus Christ, nor with the teaching that is in harmony with godly devotion, 4 he is puffed up with pride and does not understand anything. He is obsessed with arguments and dates about words. These things give rise to envy, strife, slander, wicked suspicions, 5 constant disputes about minor matters by men who are corrupted in mind and deprived of the truth..."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
That is a cop-out explanation/repsonse. For a better one read the Insight book under Apostasy to show you what a scriptural view of apostasy is - including within the Christian congregation. And how it is proper and scriptural to avoid such individuals. Both Jesus and Russell were considered apostates by apostate religion - which in effect is a compliment. It's like the world telling us we aren't doing the right thing in behaving like them and yet we are doing the right thing in not behaving like them. It's a matter of perspective. The scriptural perspective fortunately, doesn't rest on your personal opinions. 

I agree with you. The problem with this date is that no one can actually prove that it is wrong, but it can't be proved that it is right either. Jesus' enthronement was "conveniently" invisible, so we can claim he was enthroned in1914, in correlation with WW1, because that is when he was supposed to have thrown Satan down to the earth. The truth is, I feel its a little bit like a fortuneteller predicting someones future. You can always find something applicable, and it makes it look like the fortuneteller has got it right.....
 Exactly
 
 

They mean they're speculating

I agree with you. The problem with this date is that no one can actually prove that it is wrong, but it can't be proved that it is right either. Jesus' enthronement was "conveniently" invisible, so we can claim he was enthroned in1914, in correlation with WW1, because that is when he was supposed to have thrown Satan down to the earth. The truth is, I feel its a little bit like a fortuneteller predicting someones future. You can always find something applicable, and it makes it look like the fortuneteller has got it right.....
 Exactly
 
 

I agree with you. The problem with this date is that no one can actually prove that it is wrong, but it can't be proved that it is right either. Jesus' enthronement was "conveniently" invisible, so we can claim he was enthroned in1914, in correlation with WW1, because that is when he was supposed to have thrown Satan down to the earth. The truth is, I feel its a little bit like a fortuneteller predicting someones future. You can always find something applicable, and it makes it look like the fortuneteller has got it right.....
 Exactly
 
 

I agree with you. The problem with this date is that no one can actually prove that it is wrong, but it can't be proved that it is right either. Jesus' enthronement was "conveniently" invisible, so we can claim he was enthroned in1914, in correlation with WW1, because that is when he was supposed to have thrown Satan down to the earth. The truth is, I feel its a little bit like a fortuneteller predicting someones future. You can always find something applicable, and it makes it look like the fortuneteller has got it right.....
 Exactly
 
 

They mean they're speculating

Reminds me of when I was a teenager, still living at my parent's home, and I decided to toughen myself up, I would sleep on an Indian Fakir bed of plywood with about a thousand and fifty nails sticking up, but turning over made me wet the bed, and the nails got rusty. and the screaming kept my mother awake.
WHOAAA! .... and talk about trying to get fitted sheets!
....ever try to get twin size fitted sheets with 1,050 correctly spaced buttonholes?

No, you misunderstand. That is Hailstone Massage. It’s the latest craze in health care fads and many of the top Bethelites have gone in for it whole hog.
It is so embarrassing.

Now you’ve stepped over the line.
JTR is NOT a Democrat!!!

I would say this way. The year 607 is real year. The year 1914 is real year. But it seems that only thing that connecting this two subjects is, numbers. They ARE numbers. And for people who lived in those times, these years meant something. To us today, meaning lies in .... discussion only. 

Well said. The sooner we stop "going beyond the things written" and stick to our Christian mandates the better. The fact that we have been totally wrong about numerous other dates (every other date?) should give anyone legitimate pause for concern and to be skeptical that not only might the hallowed date of 1914 be wrong (including the fact that certain expectations regarding that date never materialized) but whether Jehovah even blesses that presumptuousness. We have lots of more important things to accomplish than to pin our hopes on the prognostications of well-meaning, but uninspired, imperfect men who sometimes go beyond what they have been authorized to do. Making predictions is not part of our mandate. Proclaiming what Jehovah and Jesus actually tell us in his Word are. Yes, I believe Jehovah is using his organization and the GB is doing an admirable job in organizing his people to accomplish many great things. But since it is (generally) forward-moving, it should not surprise us or cause us to get too excited about discarding things we may have held dear - as in the past - and may need to let go of now. Maybe 1914 is one of those things. Although we each individually may have "core" truths we adopt as proof this is the right organization, I personally don't believe 1914 should be included in those core truths - or any artificial, man-inspired date for that matter. Maybe we need to put 1914 on the "date pile" along with the others promoted as being significant. Even if per some unexpected chance the date turns out to be right, should our relationship and dedication to God be based on a date anyway - or either way? I think too much focus has been place on dates anyway. Stuff will happen when Jehovah says it should happen. We should be more concerned with whether we will be ready for it.

How about " Pi are round ... cornbread are square". ?
 

There is an expression in math:
“Divergent series are the work of the devil.”
Maybe the same is true of chronology.

I guess I should respond to this point too, since you added "Some scholars have updated their chronology . . . Why haven't you updated yours?"
First of all I don't care about Wiseman and Grayson or your COJ references. I believe Jesus was right when he said chronology is in the jurisdiction of the Father, and that it does not belong to us to get to know the times and the seasons. Paul said that as for the times and seasons brothers you need nothing to be written to you.
So while I don't have any personal interest in even trying to see how a secular chronology might match the Bible, I am only concerned that we aren't getting overly concerned about certain specious claims that turn out to be untrue, and have already resulted in expectation postponed that makes the heart sick. One of our responsibilities as Christians is to encourage one another and build one another up. If false stories and genealogies are likely to end up disturbing our brothers in the long run, our obligation is to make sure of all things so that we can hold fast to what is fine.
To that end I've read some of Wiseman and Grayson and Delitzsch, etc. I've checked out several of the major books they've produced, especially to read parts on the Neo-Babylonian period. The NYPL allowed me to make hundreds of pages of photocopies of some of these books that are only allowed for reference. And, of course, these days it's easy just to take a smartphone snap every relevant page.
But I don't know why you think these particular adjustments are important. You didn't even say for sure which adjustments you were referring to. May I assume you didn't give details because it has absolutely no effect on the date for the destruction of Jerusalem. Most of the adjustments I know of in Wiseman and Grayson are about the Assyrian period: Assurnasurpal, Shalmaneser, etc. There have also been typos in Babylonian tablets, even by trained scribes of the time. And sometimes the typos might have been in an original that was not corrected when copied. And sometimes the scribes made a note when they were making a correction of a previous typo when copying. None of this surprises me.
But even a dozen corrections of the sort I've read about could never override the evidence of hundreds, even many thousands of tablets that give us the entire picture of the Neo-Babylonian period. Even if there were only 7 lines of independent evidence, you could prove that 3 of them were complete frauds, and it would still not overturn the remaining lines of independent evidence. For a long time, the Watchtower publications hinted that Ptolemy was wrong and therefore they can claim anything they want about how to cherry-pick dates for a chronology and reject others. This turned out to be a fantasy, because no one needs Ptolemy at all to understand the overwhelming evidence for the neo-Babylonian chronology.
For evidence of what I am saying, I'll just ask you to share how these supposed adjustments in Grayson and Wiseman would have any effect on the date for Nebuchadnezzar II's 18th and 19th year. If you are are anything like the predecessor accounts you have emulated, I'm sure you won't oblige.

I don't have any problem understanding it, or even seeing its "intellectual" appeal to those who still believe Jerusalem was destroyed around 607 BCE. It's not even difficult to explain, if you are willing to cut a few corners scripturally. The difficulty is not with the doctrine, which I believe is simply wrong, it's with resolving the contradictions between the 1914 tradition and the scriptures.
Yes, that's why I have often referred to this teaching as a long-standing tradition, a lofty, strongly entrenched thing.
(2 Corinthians 10:4, 5) . . .but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things. 5 For we are overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. . .
2520 was not an Adventist calculation. I never contended that it was "made" by Miller. Miller might have used terminology that made it appear that he came up with it himself, but I dealt with that kind of egotistical presentation earlier. Here's a site that contains a lot of quotes directly from Miller on the subject:
https://the2520.com/william_miller.htm
"I WILL NOW BRING FORWARD SOME PROPHECIES WHICH REMAIN TO BE FULFILLED, OR WHICH HAVE RECENTLY BEEN ACCOMPLISHED"
The editor of the site above takes that as evidence that Miller got there first:
William Miller was the first person in modern times to have discovered the 2520, below are some of his thoughts on the subject
It's true that Miller was fairly early among those who discussed 2520 from some potential 7 times prophecies. Maybe as early as 1818, about 10 years before the 1828 work of Faber that was quoted in the 1830 periodical you already referenced about Faber. (Your other quote was from Chamberlain around 1860, about the time Barbour was readjusting some of Miller's starting points for the 1260, 1290, 1335, etc.)
But if you read Barbour and Russell closely, you will notice that they make the same mistakes that Miller made, and they highlight the points with the same priorities as Miller and those who communicated with Miller. (For example, notice how closely the priorities of this work match Russell's by Miller's associate, Hiram Edson, as found in a series of articles from the Review and Herald, starting in January 3, 1856. The articles are called the Times of the Gentiles, and it matches several points that Russell uses in his 1876 article contributed to The Bible Examiner (published by George Storrs). The Times of the Gentiles by Hiram Edson 
Although it's not true of the more sophisticated (more scholarly) sources, Miller-related sources use Leviticus 26 as a more important source of the 7 times than Daniel 4, as did Miller and Edson. (And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.) This was also true of Barbour and Russell. Russell also admitted that the even better source for calculating 1914 would be "Israel's doubles" by which he meant the "parallel dispensations" that mapped the same number of years to fleshly Israel as to events for "spiritual" Israel. Hiram Edson used the same scriptures (like Isaiah 40:2) to "double" the 1260 to 2520.
Also, it's not true of the more scholarly sources (like Faber) to make a mistake with the zero year inclusion. Adventist sources that had been based on Miller and Barbour had made this mistake. The sitehttps://the2520.com/william_miller.htm includes this admission:
At the time William Miller wrote the above quotes, he did not understand the transition between B. C. and A. D.  Therefore his dates are off by one year at the beginning or the end of the his understanding of the 2520.  This was because of a simple mathematical error; in math, when we go from a negative number to a positive number zero will count as one position.  In chronological year dating, to go from B.C. to A. D. you have to add one to your total because there is no year zero.
Russell admitted in the Watch Tower that he pretty much just accepted Barbour's chronology lock, stock and barrel, or maybe I should say, "hook, line and sinker."
Russell admits that he was influenced by Adventists, and the influence is obvious. That doesn't mean he was an Adventist. But if you look closely at his doctrines, even more than just Barbour's chronology, he shows much more Adventist's influence than he appears to admit.
 

The Watchtower theory on the 2520 evidently conflicts with the Bible, reason and logic, and also conflicts with the same secular support the Society depends upon for 539 BCE. You didn't even try to show that any calculations were disingenuous. And I'm only showing evidence that the calculations the Watchtower used about the 2520 contained a couple of obvious mistakes. I'm not claiming that Watchtower writers were necessarily disingenuous, even where they sometimes appear to be.
If the calculations I am showing are wrong, please show me where and I will correct them immediately.
You seem confused. The Watchtower does not add 11 years to the 1260 days. The Watchtower adds 11 days, not years. It uses 1260 days+11 days=1271 days, to get from 12/28/1914 to 6/21/1918. The Watch Tower publications never turn them into years, as your own references have done. The Watchtower just keeps it in days, and never uses the supposed "day for a year" principle on the 1260 days.
That sentence appears too convoluted. I'm guessing it's another attempt to insult something you can't defend, but you are not clear about what that is.
You used one example that had nothing to do with the seven times of Daniel 4. Later in the post you used an example from Walter Chamberlain that does reference Daniel 4, and does associate the 2520 with the Gentile Times, similar to Faber but with adjustments. You might even go on to J.A.Brown and a few others who worked with a 2520 prophecy ending not far from 1914. (Although J. A. Brown held the Gentile Times to 1260 years, not 2520).
But you might already know that Chamberlain, Campbell, Cuninghame, J.A.Brown, Elliott, Faber, Thomas, Miller, Barbour, and many others were never completely original. They all worked from, and added to, the ideas of persons who came before them. More recently, some scholars have tried to go back over the history of these "historicists" to understand their methods instead of just as defenders of their overall religious viewpoints. This has resulted in the uncovering of a common theme. Even B. W. Schulz noticed it in researching Watch Tower history. What they've noticed is that many of these persons wouldn't give credit to the person(s) from whom they were borrowing and plagiarizing. Persons like N.H.Barbour and E.G.White were even beginning to gain a status of "prophet," or dropping hints that they were the "faithful and wise servant," the channel through which persons needed to receive proper spiritual food.
Miller himself has been noted for a similar method of passing himself off as mostly just a self-taught farmer, yet he borrowed from persons before him without crediting them. B.W.Schulz defends the practice as common in those days. But it was extremely common among would-be Bible prognosticators. There is a well-researched, well-footnoted, 238-page paper on Academia.edu that says the same thing about Miller, that has been said about Barbour, White, and Russell. (https://www.academia.edu/1035050/_A_Feast_of_Reason_The_Roots_of_William_Miller_s_Biblical_Interpretation_and_its_influence_on_the_Seventh-day_Adventist_Church😞
p.205 says:
The view espoused by some Seventh-day Adventists that Miller’s Bible study was conducted in isolation and that his “Rules of Interpretation” were developed completely independently is unsustainable when the historical evidence is examined. Miller’s hermeneutics were in fact, not particularly original, innovative, or new—they bear, for example, a great similarity to the methods used by his contemporary Alexander Campbell.
p. 188 says:
Consequently, unlike Miller, White makes no systematic explanation of her principles of biblical interpretation. In fact, her most complete presentation on the topic is a simple reiteration of Miller’s views—some forty-four years after they were first
p. 105 even implies that Faber, who you quoted earlier, has been indirectly handed down through Miller and White.
White’s phrasing in these passages brings to mind Miller’s statement previously mentioned: .  .In fact, in reference to Miller, White explicitly makes use of such phrasing:. . . While it is unlikely that White read George Stanley Faber’s The Sacred Calendar of Prophecy, her use of these phrases clearly echoed that of Faber and other early historicists, as well as Miller himself.
You go on to quote "Isaiah's Call to England: being an exposition of Isaiah the eighteenth" by Walter CHAMBERLAIN. This work is a little more scholarly in that it mentions the position of Faber, Elliott, Thomas, etc, and you probably recognize more than a few similarities to J.A.Brown, and other earlier works.
Chamberlain's argument is similar to yours. He says (p.348) that these persons before him were wrong in many of the details and exact dates they used, but the very fact that several of them discussed the possibility of using a period of "7 times" as 2520 years, shows that there must be something to it. Therefore he went on to predict his own false alarm for the restoration of Israel within that same range of dates limited to 1864 up to 1914, because "end of Gentile Times" referred to the restoration of the physical nation of Israel in Jerusalem.
And these few examples only indicate that people had trouble making use the actual number that the Bible associated with the "Gentiles Times" and they were so anxious to prove themselves right that they ignored the counsel of Jesus. The evidence that these included examples of persons being blinded by their own egos is clear from some of the things that many of them said about themselves, and how so many didn't have the humility to credit their sources, but wanted credit for themselves.
Edited to add: If anyone cares to read the work (Anatolia) by Thomas that Chamberlain referenced, it's here: https://books.google.com/books?id=rCBcAAAAQAAJ  Chamberlain says " But I entertain no doubt that they can, and was agreeably surprised to find that this very thing has been done by an American author, named Thomas." I have seen phrases like this so often, that I have come to see them as code for: "This is one of the places I got the idea from, but even though he already wrote it first, I want people to think I found this on my own, and that this other person just happened to agree with me by coincidence. Even if it was many years before me."
 
 

But you did NOT show any others concurring with the 2520 prophecy. "The 2520 prophecy" according to the Watchtower, is the tree dream of Daniel 4, where the non-Jewish, wicked king Nebuchadnezzar represents the Jewish Kingdom at Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar is toppled, but banded and protected to rise again, so that his return to power represents Jesus' rise to power in 1914 as King of Jewish kingdom.
And it was not just the erred timing.
What you quoted and spoke of as "overwhelming proof" was about a man in 1830 who didn't even see these seven times as related to anything in Daniel 4. It had nothing to do with the 7 time periods of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity. He never hinted that this insanity pictured the Messianic Kingdom.*
But here's where you pulled another "Allen Smith." Allen Smith, you might remember, was well known on this forum for finding supposed evidence for something and not realizing that his evidence actually showed just the OPPOSITE of what he wanted to prove.
Here's how you did that here.
What you apparently hadn't realized is that the article you quoted from shows why Mr. Faber was WRONG. Not only wrong, but wrong to start with Nebuchadnezzar. The article shows why the more popular and preferable period of 2,520 years needs to start, NOT WITH NEBUCHADNEZZAR, but with the Assyrian assault on Israel in 728 BC, as already presented by Cuninghame who, by this logic, would have mapped two 1260 year periods as follows:
I. B.C. 728. Commencement of the subjugation of Israel and Judah by the Assyrians snd Babylonians.
II. A. D. 533. Decree of Justinian, establishing the Papal Supremacy, and the worship of the Virgin Mary.
III. A.D. 1792. Commencement of the Judgments on the Papacy, in the French Revolution.
Periods II to III above, were within 6 or 7 years of the same endpoints that Miller, Barbour and Russell accepted for the 1260-year period. Russell ran it from AD 539 to AD 1799. (sometimes AD 538 to 1798).
So what you called indisputable was disputed by your own reference. As you might recall, this is why I suspected that Allen Smith would rarely tell where he got his references from, because it so often led to someone reading that reference and seeing how it often demolished his supposed "indisputable" and "overwhelming" evidence. And Allen's common "defense" was to claim that persons were only using "word play" to prove him wrong.

Thank you for this, Jack.
Doubtless the Prince that most music fans would be eager to see resurrected is Prince Nelson, who actually went by the stage name Prince. At the wedding reception of a non-JW nephew, I mentioned to some that I was a Witness and the first thing that came from their mouths was appreciation for the most famous Witness of all in their eyes, Brother Nelson.
Chapter 1 of ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’ consists entirely of Prince’s JW experiences as found online.
I beat CBS to the punch by two years in what they said about the Oxycotin pharma fraud. It is in the Prince chapter, there because Prince died a victim of that fraud. Since the Prince chapter is the first chapter, it is even in the free preview section. See how I am saving you money, Jack?
In the flurry of reports about the supposedly unaddictive painkillers that turned out to be extremely addictive, my book quotes a Dr Johnson, who is
“forced to paint an unflattering picture of the industry that I have been a part of for the last 15 years. I wish I could tell you that this epidemic was due to an honest mistake. That the science was unclear or had mixed results that only later became evident. But I can’t. I also wish I could tell you that the only reason the problem persists is a ‘lack of physician awareness.’ But I won’t. The reason this opioid problem started and the reason it continues is sadly for the most American reason there is - business.”
At one time, Dr. Johnson points out, American doctors prescribed opioids as did doctors everywhere: for pain relief from cancer or acute injury. He then tells of a drug company [Perdue], introducing a new opioid product in 1996, that swung for the fences. It didn’t want to target just cancer patients. It wanted to target everyone experiencing everyday pain—joint pain and back pain, for example:
“To do this, they recruited and paid experts in the field of pain medicine to spread the message that these medicines were not as addictive as previously thought...As a physician in training, I remember being told that the risk of addiction for patients taking opioids for pain was ‘less than one percent.’ What I was not told was that there was no good science to suggest rates of addiction were really that low. That ‘less than one percent’ statistic came from a five-sentence paragraph in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1980. It has come to be known as the Porter and Jick study. However, it was not really a study. It was a letter to the editor; more like a tweet. You can read the whole thing in 90 seconds.”
The book doesn’t go into further detail on opioids because Prince was the topic, not the drug that killed him. However, from a blog post I wrote two years later:
“In fact, not only was the drug far more addictive than doctors and reps were led to believe, but the pain relief it delivered only lasted a few hours, not the 12 that was advertised. Yet, when complaints of such were received, the company would not permit reps to advise patients take it more often, since that exposed the fact that the much more expensive drug was no better than what was already being used for pain. Instead, the advice was to increase the dosage, and that obviously served to intensify the addictive quality. Prince and millions like him got hooked on a drug that the doctor prescribed, and when doctors started to get squirrelly, withholding supply for fear of what they were unleashing, these ones were driven to the black market to find substitutes.”
Find the experiences in Chapter 1, Prince, which, to my knowledge, is the most complete, and perhaps only, published collection of the artist's JW experiences and interactions. And it is in the free section. Be a sport Jack. Download and read it. You don’t want to piss away your whole life digging 90 years back in efforts to diss your former faith. Stay up to date with the contemporary Prince.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/686882
 
 
 

No, they are banned and prosecuted in Russia on account of their friends.
Even that is largely a straw man issue. Child sexual abuse is the premiere export of the planet, No group is unaffected. The lists that you carry on about began as efforts to snuff it out in the congregation and make sure that molesters could not simply slip undetected from one congregation to another, as they could (and still can) anywhere else. Nobody else has faces charges of not reporting it of members because nobody else has ever endeavored to keep track of it.

There is some piece of information not supplied. What it is I have no idea. But one would not be disfellowshipped for leaving one’s husband, whether he was violent or not.
Add adultery into the mix and that might well be. I do not say that adultery IS the missing piece here, but there is a missing piece.
Where you read that was in one of several post from detractors critical of an article in the December 2018 study edition of the Watchtower. I wrote up a reply to that on my own blog. It may also be here—many posts like that I also put here—but I cannot locate it:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/did-the-watchtower-give-women-bad-advice-.html

If that’s the case, I’m painting my entire house that way and I’m making everyone jump in front of it.

The one exception is my sweatshirt reserved for special occasions sporting the logo
     Supplemented with a small image at lower right of a hen