607 B.C.E. - Is it Biblically Supported?

[JW Insider]

20 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

Well, if you got volume 2 of John Q. Browns Even-Tide, I'm sure, you can get ahold of a copy. I was basing my comment, on ideologies made about 3 years ago.

I was never that concerned about JQB, and I'm not really that interested in getting volume 2. "Scholar_JW" already proved to me that COJ was correct in his assessment when "Scholar_JW" (Neil) admitted that the best evidence against COJ's summary was in Vol 2, p.208, but wouldn't dare show it. There was already plenty of evidence on the Internet that "Scholar_JW" was not telling the truth, because he had already been thoroughly embarrassed over a decade ago when he attempted that same dishonest claim. I'm also not so concerned about COJ. I don't know what you mean by ideologies, but I absolutely know that your claim about a copy never came from me, whether three years ago or at any time, because I never had a copy, and was never that concerned about it. There are dozens of Biblical reasons to reject the 1914 ideology, I don't need secular reasons. But I know that other people should see the secular reasons, too, because they honestly believe something about the secular evidence that isn't true. I'm also willing to share what I have learned about all the evidence because of how important this idea is, and how dangerous it can be from a Christian's perspective. (see Matthew 24, etc.)

[AlanF]

4 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

Oh! I think there is plenty of that here, "not telling the truth", as well. But its good to know, your, not concerned about COJ's faulty book. That won't help Raymond Franz though, will it? Being mislead by an uneducated person.

You refused to quote anything written by COJ, ultimately admitting your claims were based ONLY on your faulty memory.

You STILL refuse to quote anything written by Franz, almost certainly because you're relying on your faulty memory.

In other words, you're still lying.

AlanF

[TrueTomHarley]

17 hours ago, AlanF said:

LOL! Are you trying to be a clone of Trump?

AlanF

This is such a strange comment, because the post has nothing to do with Trump.

Nonetheless, one cannot but notice the parallels. The President does rib his enemies all the time. It always goes over their heads and they accuse him of telling 'lies.' Is it a deliberate ploy to try to hang him with his own literal words or are they just plain stupid? Darned if I know. But they look like absolute fools when they, say (this one I'm just making up, Alan) say he lied when he called someone out for crying crocodile tears, since they know the man is not a crocodile. Or maybe they don't look like fools, because they relate only to each other, and they all think it is vital to point out that distinction. What a screwy world!

Alan is just like these yoyos. How many times has he accused me of telling a lie? He harps on it. It very obviously is not a lie (that Wolff spoke to no one of importance). Granted, it is an exaggeration. But it is very hard to believe anyone does not clearly see the remark for what it is, excepting only someone who prides himself on being dense.

He even managed to insinuate I was racist!!! Me! Lovable TTH - who is unfailing nice to all people, with minor permissible caveats, whereas he is unfailingly offensive, condescending and nasty. I mean, C'mon! Does he not remind you of those big dumb animals with horns that rams its fellows to prove who's the man? (to that extent, he does prove evolution)

As far as I am concerned, Trump v Hillary is a godsend for Christians because it brings into stark relief 2 Timothy 3:1-5 - that endless list of negative traits. It used to be if you cited it and your listener didn't agree the verse is fulfilled now more than ever, there was not much you could do about it - it is subjective. But now its fulfillment is so obvious. 

It used to be people would scream at each other till the cows come home over God/no God, or medicine/alt medicine or various other sideshows that could be ignored by the average person. But with Trump/hate Trump, almost everybody is drawn in and 2 Timothy 3 becomes the yeartext for this entire system of things.

[JW Insider]

4 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

I was impressed by how deeply he had gone into the matter, also by the completeness and factualness of his presentation.

So am I. So were many others, including persons who are experts in related fields. So should you be.

[Arauna]

12 hours ago, AlanF said:

True, but that's no excuse for gross ignorance or sloppiness.

I've seen a different kind of sloppiness from you - and it affects your integrity.     You have made wild statements on this forum that were unfounded, such as, only Juda were returned back to their homeland etc... which is an important mistake and affects the outcome to the understanding of the subject  607 BCE. 

I bet you had the same sloppiness when you investigated that "extremely logical" arguments made by Dawkins.  I am honest when I say - I have never met a Dawkins-disciple which has thought Darwinism through properly - they just take his 'expert' religion and follow it like a slave. As I have said before - these theories or other philosophies take the place of religion because one cannot believe in "nothing".

I asked you a question before to see how committed you are to your religion. It is a 'blind faith' if it is not based on proper science..... even if most atheist professors and their disciples adhere to its "theories" and profess it as reality and fascistically do not tolerate any opposition in the universities.

I am not going to argue this with you because you are committed to your 'faith' but if there is anything that is truthful in you, you will admit that the bone record is scant.  It seems that nature made no mistakes at all - almost like a perfect god- most species appeared perfectly formed and every organ working together in perfect synchronization....no mistakes- perfect selections - almost like a theoretical god.   There is no record of  mistakes...and one would expect millions if we look at the number of different species around and the changes that were ongoing. 

What scientists cannot answer - and they know this because it is rarely talked about...... is that the different tissues and organs (liver, eyes etc.) developed over millions of years when the earth had " goldilocks" conditions..... long-term stable conditions for perfect selections... And yet, the complex sexual organs had to develop very quickly so the mammal can survive.  What is more many mammals have such different sexual organs as to boggle the mind!  Read up about it - it will stun you! Many are totally different to other organs.  

Evolution takes the easies path to survive...... why randomly develop separate sexual organs that function totally differently? .... when it is easier to have everything in one individual?  What boggles the mind is that these organs developed totally separately by ...... chance...... and yet the one has sperm and the other eggs... and the shape of them is different and yet fits perfectly....and they can only reproduce when they are in the same area!   Unthinking random selections that by chance happen to be totally different but happen to work perfectly together...and happen to develop in close proximity -    theoretical god or miracles?   

And if you try to argue that nature could "cut and paste" the DNA language program - and add a little here and there to make up for the differences - then we need an intelligent programmer don't we - one who will cut and past just the right DNA sequence?  

Mathematics is also a 'language' which describes phenomena which cannot be described in other languages..... it depends on how the "tool" is utilized and helps to sift out ideas which are illogical..... but is it  'absolute' truth?  Some treat math as a substitute god. Many theories for which we have calculations cannot be proven because humans are mortal and history has proven that we often make mistakes in our calculations/assumptions - and then one theory is replaced by another....

 

This is my last contribution on this subject since it has eaten too much of my time - I have an active life!

Thanks to those who were kind and supporting....   I have looked at the Bible again and its consistency regarding the main theme tells me this is the only "reality".   World conditions are also progressing as predicted since 1914  and greedy/arrogant scientists are main contributors to its problems - such as the poisons which are polluting our water resources and agricultural land, genetic engineering which is causing many sicknesses and may lead to world hunger because it is removing diversity, bombs which can destroy the earth over and over and much more...   other frightening developments.

So I will definitely not put my future in the hands of fallible men/scientists  who are the brains behind the sciences which is contributing to the destruction of earth and sea (together with governments, false religions, and the economic system of the world which cares only for profits...or power) .........and all those uninformed humans who buy into its powers. 

The world is such as mess and rolling downhill quite fast....  Soon Jehovah will "prove to be" - as the meaning of his name indicates....the nations shall have to know that I am Jehovah.

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

23 minutes ago, Arauna said:

The world is such as mess and rolling downhill quite fast

I'll get a lot of mileage out of this one. @AlanF will pounce on every single word. And I'll paste him over each one, the opinionated oaf.

Look, we have destroyed JWI's thread and he has started another one. I messaged him that (tentatively) I would not go there. I would not have gone here except that Alan is so obnoxious that he draws people in. He's been the ruin of many a poor boy, and Lord I know I'm one. Ann and many others make parallel points on the subject, but because they are all reasonably civil, nobody feels they must do battle with them.

I have learned my lesson. (tentatively) I will not mess with JWI's other thread. (probably) @The Librarian is right. You can't destroy every thread by kicking every dog that barks at you. Not if you want to get very far. Rodney King said it best: 'people, can't we all just get along?' The Beatles said it second best: we must 'come together.'

This thread is a goner, and it will die a quick death if no fuel is heaped on. But there is yet (some) hope for JWI's new thread. Let know one trample upon it, at least not for 42 months.

[TrueTomHarley]

20 minutes ago, Nana Fofana said:

And at the risk of being thought to habitually "rail and froth" over an issue

Don't want no railing. Don't want no frothing.

Zip

Zero

Nada

hehehe :))))))

 

[TrueTomHarley]

We don't need no educaishun. We don't need no thought control. Hey, teacher, leave us kids alone!

[TrueTomHarley]

I'll use that line on @The Librarian the next time the old hen comes around.

[AlanF]

AllenSmith wrote:

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Sorry, JWinsider. I would think you would have Raymond Franz book as well. A lot of what you have said indirectly in the past has the same theme. So, you know very well, Raymond Franz was *influenced* by COJ, and his faulty book. Why would you dispute the obvious?

Now, after several requests, you finally manage to quote from Franz's book. Of course, as usual you have no idea what you're talking about.

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CoC 2004

Note that this is from the 4th edition of 2004. It duplicates material from page 140 of the 1st edition of 1983.

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As discussed in a previous chapter, the research I had to do in connection with the book Aid to Bible Understanding brought home to me that the Society’s date of 607 B.C.E. for Jerusalem’s destruction by Babylon was contradicted by all known historical evidence. Still, I continued to put trust in that date in spite of the evidence, feeling that it had Scriptural backing. Without 607 B.C.E. the crucial date of 1914 would be placed in question. I took the view that the historical evidence was likely defective and argued that way in the Aid book.

Then, in 1977, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sweden, named Carl Olof Jonsson, sent to the Brooklyn headquarters a massive amount of research he had done on Biblically related chronology and on chronological speculation.

 

So according to your own quoted material, Franz first saw the earliest version of Jonsson's research in 1977 -- 27 years before the material you quoted, 3 years before Franz left Bethel, and six years before Jonsson published his 1st edition of GTR in 1983.

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Jonsson was an elder and had been actively associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses for some twenty years. Having had experience researching chronology myself, I was impressed by how deeply he had gone into the matter, also by the completeness and factualness of his presentation. [p.176]

The above in no way supports your claim that Franz made any sort of errors about chronology, nor that Jonsson made any sort of errors at all, in any version of his research or books.

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Unfortunately, COJ’s 4th edition doesn’t show the massive amount of research (treatise) he originally sent to the Watchtower.

Duh. That's because the original research was not a book, nor was it anything beyond a first draft of a book, and not meant for general publication. Furthermore, Jonsson was constantly doing research and learning new things. By the time he published his first version in 1983, he had added a great deal to his original research. So by that time, all of the material in his 1977 draft was incorporated into the 1983 book, and a lot more besides.

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I believe, I, recently showed the error on his 3rd edition.

You showed no such thing.

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So, I don’t see the need to include his 2nd edition. They're all worthless.

Spluttering excuses. Jonsson explicitly and at length described all three main instances of exile (605/604, 597, 587/586 (and another in 582/581) ) in all four editions of GTR.

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Now, a “GOOD” researcher and scholar, should have available all material pregnant to his/her, goal.

I've never heard of material pregnant to a goal.

I possess all editions of GTR and of CoC. Obviously you don't. By your own definition, you're not a GOOD researcher or scholar.

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I'm surprised to see you lack certain material. I would think, that in itself would show, this forum is NOT for academia, but simply a forum, meant for unsustainable, critics of the Watchtower by clueless people pretending to be intelligent.

I love it. Said by among the most clueless of JW defenders I've ever encountered.

AlanF

[AlanF]

Nana Fofana wrote:

Quote

 

:: known historical evidence

I don't get get what's known, historical, or evident about it.

 

Not that you haven't been given access in this thread to a great of such historical evidence.

Note what Franz wrote; he came to understand that:

<< . . . the Society’s date of 607 B.C.E. for Jerusalem’s destruction by Babylon was contradicted by all known historical evidence. >>

All reputable scholars by the 1970s agreed, based on all manner of historical writings, cuneiform texts, stone stele, etc. that the date for Jerusalem's destruction was 587/586 BCE, with the uncertainty of one year due to seemingly inconsistent statements in the Bible itself.

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Talk about "nooo light" adjustments!

And I don't mean on the part of the WBTS.

 

What adjustments are you talking about?

AlanF

[JW Insider]

15 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

Sorry, JWinsider. I would think you would have Raymond Franz book as well.

I accept your apology. Yes, I have 2 books by Raymond Franz. CoC and iSoCF. I assume they are the latest editions. I also purchased a copy of GTR4 a few years ago, but this was after Rolf Furuli sent me his two books. He sent me Vol II for free, after I discussed some issues with Vol I with him. When I worked in Manhattan for 25+ years it was in midtown, just a few blocks from the NYPL research library at 42nd & 5th, where I made photocopies of entire books or at least key pages from almost every reference work that the WTS has quoted from Assyrian/Babylonian/Persian tablets. (Parker & Dubberstein, Sachs & Hunger, etc., etc.) Many of these had to be ordered from different libraries around the country. They never could get me a copy of JQB except on microfilm, and I never ordered it. All of this was well-before Google Books and the availability of so many works on PDF.

15 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

A lot of what you have said indirectly in the past has the same theme. So, you know very well, Raymond Franz was *influenced* by COJ, and his faulty book. Why would you dispute the obvious?

I don't know that Raymond Franz was ever influenced by COJ, but I have never disputed that he wasn't. Did you make that up - that I had disputed this somewhere? I could not have said either of them were or were not influenced by each other, because I don't know. If either one of them claimed to be influenced by the other, that doesn't change a thing. Whenever you, Allen, read something by anyone, I assume you are 'influenced' in some way, but it doesn't mean that you necessarily believe everything you read. I wouldn't doubt at all that there are faults in their books, but you haven't shown any. And your track record has been something like ZERO so far on being able to back up what you say with facts when it comes to these books. I have never yet heard you make a true claim about the books, and yet I have heard you make false claims about them several times. So I have my doubts you'll finally come through this time, but it still wouldn't make a difference to me. I don't depend on anything in any of their books.  (But I do appreciate them for their candor and accuracy in everything I've been able to check out so far.)