This article is going to be quite heavy going as it involves looking at ancient astronomical observations and correlating them with star charts. I have to thank my friend Chris Owens aka. “Londo Mollari”, because the majority of the research comes from his articles (which I’ve reproduced without changes here) and from his brilliant video series “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-K8pyVfKcU&list=PLyNx0oM_bmgDJHQFzgm4L0rRuPpwTOVmz).
On November 1, 2011, a Watchtower article entitled “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed? Part Two—What the Clay Documents Really Show” was published. In the article, Watchtower claims that the “astronomical diary” tablet known as VAT 4956 proves that Babylon was destroyed in 607 BCE.
Now, as laypeople, how can we prove or disprove this claim? Most people reading this blog post cannot read Babylonian cuneiform and are not experts on astronomy. To tell you the truth, even as a linguist who speaks multiple languages, my own knowledge of cuneiform and the Akkadian language expends only to knowing how to count using the sexagesimal system and a few other symbols like “year”, “month”, “day” and “king”.
So, how on earth can we verify what any ancient cuneiform tablet says if we can’t read it?
Well, it’s absolutely unnecessary for you to know even an ounce of cuneiform, so of course, we will have to rely somewhat on experts. I am going to teach you how to do the calculations yourself and reach your own conclusions based on the available evidence. All you need is:
- A translation of the tablet VAT 4956 (now kept in the “Vorderasiatisches Museum”, Berlin): http://www.caeno.org/pdf/F019_Translation.pdf
- A list of modern constellations and their Babylonian equivalents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_star_catalogues
- Free astronomical software: SkyChart 4.0 or SkyMap Pro 11.04 (or if you don’t want to or can’t download software to your computer, the slightly less sophisticated, but just as effective http://skyviewcafe.com/)
Be aware that if you use SkyViewCafe.com, you should subtract 1 from the number of the year you want to look at because Sky View Cafe uses Astronomical year numbering, which includes a year zero. So, the year 1 BCE would be [0], 2 BCE would be [-1], 500 BCE would be [-499]. If you’re using the Skychart software however, you do not need to do this.
Pinpointing an exact year
The Skychart software can help us see what ancient skies looked like, and using this software coupled with the translation of VAT 4956 and the constellational equivalencies, we can see exactly what the ancient Babylonian astronomer saw as he looked up into the sky and exactly when it was.
The planets and constellations appear in the sky at different rates of regularity, and in combination, the 5 planets known by the ancient Babylonians (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) repeat their approximate positions about once every 18,588 years, far longer even than recorded human history. That figure gets far bigger if we include eclipses, comets and constellations. So we can safely say that every night sky in history (and even in pre-history) has been unique. We can refer to any record of the sky as a “cosmic fingerprint“.
The first line of the VAT 4956 tablet says:
1. Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Nisannu 1st, the moon became visible behind the Bull of Heaven; [sunset to moonset:] …. [ …. ]
So we have to use our Skychart software to find a year when, on the 1st of Nisannu, the moon became visible behind the Bull of Heaven (Taurus).
I looked painstakingly through the sky charts for every for every year from 599-500 BCE in order to find the correct year. We only need to search the sky charts for the first new moon after the spring equinox (1st day of Nisannu which was New Year’s Day for the Babylonians), so this narrows our search considerably.
The moon must be above (in Babylonian, “behind”) the constellation of Taurus. The moon must also look like the above picture on that day, with a sliver of light indicating the beginning of a new month.
Half an hour of so of searching and the only Babylonian New Year’s Day that matches those criteria is the 22nd of April 568 BCE. The sun was going down and the sliver of the new moon was becoming visible.
Do all of the other observations fit too?
In Line 2, the tablet says (still talking about the 1st day):
2. Saturn was in front of the Swallow. The 2nd, in the morning, a rainbow stretched in the west. Night of the 3rd, the moon was 2 cubits in front of [ …. ]
As we saw in the previous post, the Swallow was a small constellation which was made up of stars which we now classify as parts of Pisces and Pegasus (specifically the pentagonal part of Pisces and the star Epsilon Pegasi, the “nose” of Pegasus the winged horse).
If Saturn was in front of the Swallow (meaning just under it), then we have confirmed that this is the exact year this tablet was written.
Bingo, Saturn is right there, exactly under the Swallow (the 5 pentagonal stars of Pisces) and it stayed close to there for that entire year.
Saturn’s orbit is about 29 years, but another observation on the second side of the tablet reveals the positions of not one, but two faster-moving planets, Venus (whose orbit takes 225 days) and Mercury (which has an orbit of 88 days). This combination of planets greatly narrows things down.
19′: …., …., The 21st, overcast; the river level rose. Around the 20th, Venus and Mercury entered the “band” of the Swallow. From [ …. Jupiter, ]
So we would expect to see Venus and Mercury join Saturn on the 21st day of Month XII of that year (568/567) and sure enough there they are with Saturn behind (below) the Swallow (Pisces/Pegasus):
It doesn’t happen very often that all three planets are seen together, so that nails 568/567 as the date this tablet was inscribed.
We could do this for all of the rest of the observations of the tablet, but this article would be very long indeed. Needless to say, the astronomical observations made by that Babylonian scribe can be pinpointed to a specific sky chart from the year that spanned from April 568 to March 567 BCE. We can even tell in some cases exactly what time the scribe made the observations. Truly a cosmic fingerprint.
A Lunar Eclipse
A lunar eclipse happens when Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon casting Earth’s shadow onto the moon. It is often called a “blood moon” because the moon turns a reddish colour due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, the refraction of light (in this case red light) onto the moon. I witnessed my first blood moon early in the morning of the 28th of September 2015. It was total between 2:11 to 3:23am, but this picture is from around 1:30am.
Here is an animation of how it looked sped up x3600
The trusty Skychart software confirms what my own eyes saw.
A Lunar Eclipse in Ancient Babylon
A lunar eclipse that occured in the 15th day of Month III (Simānu) that can further pinpoint the year the tablet was written.
Lines 17 and 18 of the tablet reads:
17: [ …. ] The 15th, one god was seen with the other; sunrise to moonset: 7o30′. A lunar eclipse which was omitted (could not be seen) […. ]
18: [ …. the moon was be]low the bright star at the end of the [ Lion’s ] foot [ …. ]
Looking again at the Skychart software and counting 2 lunar months and 15 days to the 15th of Simānu, we can see that the lunar eclipse described on the 17th line of the obverse side of the tablet, took place on the 4th of July 567 BCE. This ever so partial eclipse started in the evening and could not be seen from Babylon because it would have been daytime, but it was predicted by their scribes so they knew it had happened.
Earth’s umbra (or shadow) is shown in red, but it obviously isn’t visible in the real sky. The Babylonians would have just missed the lunar eclipse; the umbra and the moon would have been moving slowly apart.
Watchtower’s Rebuttal
Year 18 of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule is the year that Babylon conquered and destroyed Jerusalem. Most historians agree that this was 587/586 for the reasons stated above. However, The Watchtower stands alone in defiant disagreement.
Watchtower chronology relies on counting backwards 2520 years from 1914 to the destruction of Jerusalem to 607 BCE. Due to the importance of 1914 for Watchtower chronology, Jehovah’s Witnesses have a clear agenda in trying to pinpoint the 37th regnal year of Nebuchadnezzar as 588 BCE rather than 568 BCE.
If Year 37 was 568 BC, Year 19 was 587 BC.
If Year 37 was 588 BC, Year 18 was 607 BC.
The Watchtower article of November 1, 2011, entitled “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two What the Clay Documents Really Show” says this:
The tablet [VAT 4956] mentions a lunar eclipse that was calculated as occurring on the 15th day of the third Babylonian month, Simanu. It is a fact that a lunar eclipse occurred on July 4 (Julian calendar) of this month during 568 B.C.E. However, there was also an eclipse 20 years earlier, on July 15, 588 B.C.E.
If 588 B.C.E. marked the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar II, then his 18th year would be 607 B.C.E.—the very year indicated by the Bible’s chronology for the destruction of Jerusalem! (See the time line below.) But does VAT 4956 provide further corroborating evidence for the year 607 B.C.E.?
In addition to the aforementioned eclipse, there are 13 sets of lunar observations on the tablet and 15 planetary observations. These describe the position of the moon or planets in relation to certain stars or constellations.18 There are also eight time intervals between the risings and settings of the sun and the moon.18a
Because of the superior reliability of the lunar positions, researchers have carefully analyzed these 13 sets of lunar positions on VAT 4956. They analyzed the data with the aid of a computer program capable of showing the location of celestial bodies on a certain date in the past.19 What did their analysis reveal? While not all of these sets of lunar positions match the year 568/567 B.C.E., all 13 sets match calculated positions for 20 years earlier, for the year 588/587 B.C.E.
Gaps in the record?
The claim in the image above scanned from the Watchtower article is that there are gaps in the Babylonian records, and they have “proven” this by picturing 6 tablets. Is it really true that there are gaps in the records? Is it true that the Babylonian Chronicles only account for 35 years of the Neo-Babylonian period?
Yes, it is true, but we don’t need to just use the chronicle tablets. There are literally hundreds of thousands of dated clay tablets in the museums of the world which are not chronicle tablets. There are historical inscriptions, official correspondence, mundane letters, administrative and legal texts, were found thousands of divinatory, magical, medical, literary and lexical texts and even letters of customer service complaint.
British museum archaeologists alone have discovered more than 50,000 clay tablets from the Neo-Babylonian period from the ancient cities of Sippar, Babylon, Borsippa, Uruk, Larsa, Ur and Kutalla. Many of these tablets are dated.
The British Museum website outlines the clay tablets in its possession, a total of far more than 125,000:
- Early Dynastic (c.3200–2500 BC) – 500 items from Ur, Fara
- Old Akkadian (c. 2500–2200 BC) 150 items
- Ur III (c. 2200–2000 BC) – 30,000 items from Lagash, Umma, Ur, Drehem
- Old Assyrian (c. nineteenth–eighteenth centuries BC) – 700 items from Anatolia
- Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1650 BC) – 20,000 items from Sippar, Ur, Larsa, Uruk, Kutalla, Kisurra
- Non-Mesopotamian – 400 items including Alalakh in Syria, Amarna in Egypt, Elamite texts from Iran and Hittite texts from Anatolia
- Neo-Assyrian (first millennium BC) – 25,000 items from Kuyunjik, Nimrud
- Neo-Babylonian (first millennium BC) – 50,000 items from Sippar, Babylon, Borsippa, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, Kutalla.
125,000 clay tablets in the British Museum alone, not counting the tablets in the Louvre, the Israel Museum, the Smithsonian, the National Museum of Iraq and countless other world-class museums.
So, while it is true that the Babylonian Chronicles only cover 35 of the 88 years of the Neo-Babylonian period, collectively, on these 50,000 tablets there are records for every single year of the Neo-Babylonian period and for every king.
The Eclipse
The Watchtower claims that the eclipse mentioned in VAT 4956 refers not to the one on 4 July 568 BCE, but to the one which occured on 15 July 588 B.C.E.? The Skychart software tells us that it was also an eclipse that the Babylonians missed.
We can see that the Babylonians wouldn’t have seen the eclipse because at moon set, Earth’s umbra was coming toward the moon, and at moonrise, it was moving away. The eclipse happened while the moon was below the horizon.
But even though the eclipse matches, there are several problems with this 588 date.
First, VAT 4956 dates the eclipse to the 15th of Month III (Simanu). If this date were true, then counting backwards from 15 July 588 BCE, the 1st of Month I (Nisannu) would have been early May.
However, the first day of the Babylonian year, Nisannu 1, began at the first new moon after the vernal equinox (21st March), so it could never began as late as May. According to tables in R. A. Parker & W. H. Dubberstein’s book Babylonian Chronology, the 1st of Nisannu never once in the 700-year period covered by the charts (626 BCE – CE 75) began as late as in May.
And in fact, the eclipse for 588/587 is recorded in another clay tablet. In an online article Carl Olof Jonsson says:
Very interestingly, the lunar eclipse of July 15, 588 BCE was recorded by the Babylonians on another cuneiform tablet, BM 38462, No. 1420 in A. Sachs’ LBAT catalogue, and No. 6 in H. Hunger’s Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (ADT), Vol. V (Wien, 2001). I discussed this tablet on pages 180-182 of my book, The Gentile Times Reconsidered(3rd ed. 1998, 4th ed. 2004). The chronological strength of this tablet is just as decisive as that of VAT 4956. It contains annual lunar eclipse reports dating from the 1st to at least the 29th regnal year of Nebuchadnezzar (604/603 – 576/575 BCE). The preserved parts of the tablet contain as many as 37 records of eclipses, 22 of which were predicted, 14 observed, and one that is uncertain.
The entry containing the record of the July 15, 588 BCE eclipse (obverse, lines 16-18) is dated to year 17, not year 37, of Nebuchadnezzar! This entry reports two lunar eclipses in this year, one “omitted” and one observed. The first, “omitted” one, which refers to the eclipse of July 15, 588, is dated to month IV (Duzu), not to month III (Simanu). So it cannot be the eclipse dated to month III on VAT 4956. That this eclipse really is the one of July 15, 588 is confirmed by the detailed information given about the second, observed lunar eclipse, which is dated to month X (Tebetu) of year 17. The details about the time and the magnitude help to identify this eclipse beyond all reasonable doubts. The whole entry reads according to H. Hunger’s translation in ADT V, page 29:
“[Year] 17, Month IV, [omitted.]
[Month] X, the 13th, morning watch, 1 beru 5o [before sunrise?]
All of it was covered. [It set eclips]ed.”
Another problem is that the rest of the astronomical observations do not match up with the sky as described in the tablet.
Coming back to line 2 of the tablet we can see that Saturn was in the Swallow:
2: Saturn was in front of the Swallow. The 2nd, in the morning, a rainbow stretched in the west. Night of the 3rd, the moon was 2 cubits in front of [ …. ]
Saturn’s orbit around the Sun lasts 29.4 years, and seems to move across our sky very slowly. This means that Saturn was in the Swallow for the entire year of Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th regnal year (568/567 BCE), as we can see with these two screenshots taken on the first day of Month I (Nisannu) and the 21st day of Month XII (Addaru) respectively.
So the tablet’s 1st of Nisannu matches up with the 23rd of April 568 BCE, but where was Saturn in Watchtower’s date of 4th April 588 BCE?
A quick search on Skychart reveals that Saturn at that time was not near the Swallow at all.
No, in 588 BCE, on the Babylonian New, and throughout the whole of 588/587, Saturn was between the constellations of Gemini and Cancer. This is a completely different part of the sky from Pisces.
We can see that Watchtower and Jehovah’s Witness apologists are completely wrong about when the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign was. They have tried to manipulate the data to prove that the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar, when Jerusalem was destroyed, was 607 BCE, but time and time again, the astronomical observations do not match the 37th year to 588 BCE, but to 568 BCE.
The cosmic fingerprint doesn’t lie. Year 37 was 568 BCE, so Jerusalem was destroyed in Year 18, 587 BCE. Watchtower chronology doesn’t stand a chance.
REFERENCES
Jonsson, Carl Olof (2004) The Gentile Times Reconsidered(3rd ed. 1998, 4th ed.)
Jonsson Carl Olof (2007) A critical review of Rolf Furuli’s 2nd volume on chronology: Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian Chronology. Volume II of Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible (Oslo: Awatu Publishers). http://kristenfrihet.se/kf2/review.htm
Londo Mollari, reproduction of an article written by Londo Mollari: https://xjwfriends.com/2018/02/08/vat4956/ (originally posted at http://www.jwlove.org/category/vat-4956-2/ – Website defunct)
R. A. Parker & W. H. Dubberstein (1956) Babylonian Chronology (Brown Univeristy Press)
Translation of the tablet VAT 4956: http://www.caeno.org/pdf/F019_Translation.pdf
Free astronomical software: http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/
A list of Babylonian constellations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_star_catalogues
Babylonian Calendar Converter: http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/babylon/babycal_converter.htm
User: AnnOMaly – https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/216051/do-all-13-sets-lunar-positions-on-vat-4956-fit-year-588-587-b-c-e
Astronomical diary VAT 4956: http://www.lavia.org/english/archivo/vat4956en.htm
Ancient Fish in the Stellar Sea – Remnants of Babylon – http://onesky.arizona.edu/2015/10/ancient-fish-in-the-stellar-sea/
The Watchtower (2011) When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two: What the Clay Documents Really Show https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011810
“Watchtower’s” Chronlogy is quite simple — it’s elementary-level math. Just count back 70 years from 537 when it can be assumed the Jews were officially free to worship their God, and you get 607, and 539 is an established date in which Babylon was overthrown. The Bible does pronounce a 70 year exile, I believe twice.
It’s really that simple. If you require a heavy, convoluted refutation, then that means you really can’t refute it.
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Watchtower chronology is indeed simple, but the complexity or simplicity of an argument doesn’t make it true or false. Whether Watchtower chronology is simple or complex, it most certainly isn’t historically accurate for several reasons:
1. Both dates 607 and 537 are unhistorical.
2. Jerusalem was not destroyed in 607 but in 587 BCE. The calculations of the astronomical tablets are irrefutable.
3. No matter how much you *assume* that 537 BCE is the date the Jews returned to Jerusalem, the fact is that nowhere in the Bible or in secular history is 537 mentioned.
(I’m not saying that 537 is an impossible date, but that we don’t know if it was 538 or 536. We only know that the Jews returned sometime after the regnal year 539/538 and that the foundations of the temple were laid in 535 and that the temple was completed 5 years later in 530 BCE. But we cannot be sure of 537 as there is no record).
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Secondly, and most importantly, EVEN according to the Bible, the 70 year period does not refer to the exile or to the destruction of Jerusalem, but to the 70 years that Babylon was the ascendant power in the ancient near east.
Jeremiah 25:9, 11 says “I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. […] This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (NIV).
…and Jeremiah 29: 10-11 says “This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate forever.” (NIV).
– It did not say that 70 years would be complete for Jerusalem, but for Babylon.
– It did not say that only Jerusalem and Judah would be desolated and serving Babylon, but that “this land [and] the surrounding nations” would be desolate. It said that the “whole land” would be desolated and that “these nations” (plural) would serve Babylon.
– It did not say that that God would return the Jews to Jerusalem, but that God would punish the king of Babylon, which is exactly what happened in 539 when the writing on the wall being fulfilled.
So we do not need the made-up dates of 607 and 537 BCE to explain the 70 year period. Most religious scholars count the 70 years from 609 to 539 BCE. Even the Jews count from 609 to 539. Secular history confirms this by telling us that Babylon completely conquered Assyria in 609 at the Battle of Carchemish and then Babylon in turn fell to the Medo-Persians in 539, a period of exactly 70 years; 70 years that the nations served Babylon.
Incidentally, 609 BCE was also the date of the Battle of Megiddo, which left an indelible mark on the Jewish psyche, so it’s not surprising that they count the 70 years from 609 until 539, when the promise made by God to “bring you back to this place” was fulfilled with the inscription of the Cyrus Cylinder.
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Actually, both the Bible and Josephus insert a 70-year exile/desolation period from the last deportation in year 23 to the return in the 1st of Cyrus. The original dating was from 525 BCE to 455 BCE. The Persians revised the timeline to cover for Xerxes claiming he was Artaxerxes, his own son, when they were both the same king. 30 extra years were added to the 6-year rule of Darius I so he was old enough to be the grandfather to Artaxerxes. The Persians tried to compensate for these extra years by removing these years from the Babylonian kings, but could only effectively remove 26 years. That’s why the 70-year exile doesn’t work with the revised timeline.
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It’s been a few weeks and I have had no reply from you as to the evidence I have presented.
Jeremiah 25:11 says that the 70 years would begin when the nations begin to serve Babylon (609 BCE is when Babylon took the mantle of authority from Assyria) not when Jerusalem was destroyed. – “These nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”
Jeremiah 25:12 says that the 70 years would end when Babylon is punished (539 BCE), not when the Jews returned to Jerusalem. – “Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation.”
Do you have any response at all to that information or any defence of Watchtower chronology?
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I don’t believe WT uses 1914 to establish their 607 date — they use 539, when Babylon was overthrown by Cyrus, and given the time for him to issue the decree and for them to travel to Jerusalem, they say it’s probable the jews arrived in 537. Then they simply count backward 70 years (the biblical length of the exile) and arrive at 607 that way.
1914 is used for the Gentile Times teaching primarily.
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I’m afraid you believe wrongly. Watchtower does indeed count backwards from 1914 to get 607 BCE, not forward.
From the 1890s until 1943, the Watchtower Society held 606 BCE to be the date of Jerusalem’s destruction. The change from 606 to 607 in 1943 shows that they were indeed counting backwards from 1914, not forward from 607.
The year 1914 was used to establish the erroneous year of 606 (later changed to 607), which was in turn used to support the erroneous date of 536 (later changed to 537). The years 536 and 537 were close enough to the attested date of 539 that members of the Bible Student movement never really challenged the chronology at the time. Before 1914, all of these dates changed many times (as this chart shows: https://i1.wp.com/xjwfriends.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/2520.png), but after 1914, suspiciously, the end point of 1914 remained the same because the occurance of World War 1 forced them to keep that date, whether or not 606, 607 or 586 were the correct dates for Jerusalem’s destruction.
Evidence to show that 606 BCE was the date Watchtower believed in until 1943 comes from Watchtower’s own publications:
In the Watchtower article of November 1, 1914, p.5565 (reprints) it says: “Studying God’s Word, we have measured the 2520 years, the seven symbolic times, from that year 606 B.C. and have found that it reached down to October, 1914, as nearly as we were able to reckon. We did not say positively that this would be the year”.
Even as late as 1942, Watchtower still held 606 BCE to be the date that Jerusalem fell:
“The Lord God used Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, as his executioner to do the overturning. That was in 606 B.C., and there the “seven times”, the “times of the Gentiles”, began”. – The New World (1942), p. 77
It wasn’t until 1943 in the book “The Truth Shall Make You Free” that the date was “re-adjusted” from 606 BCE to 607 BCE when the Watchtower Society realised there was no year zero:
“Inasmuch as the count of the Gentile “seven times” began its first year at the fall of 607 B.C. […] and the sum total is 2,520 years, ending in the fall of A.D. 1914.” – The Truth Shall Make You Free (1943)
This clearly shows that the date of 1914 was fixed, and that the start date, 606 or 607, didn’t really matter to the Watchtower Society. 1914 had to be preserved by any means necessary.
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What’s more, the early JWs (Bible Students) believed that 1914 would be the date for Armageddon.
“We see no reason for changing the figures — nor could we change them if we would. They are, we believe, God’s dates, not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble”. – The Watchtower, July 15, 1894, p. 1677 (Reprints)
When Armageddon didn’t come in 1914, the Watchtower Society changed its doctrine. Notice how, instead of ‘we’, the Watchtower Society uses the word ‘they’ in the next quotation. This is very common in Watchtower literature when it tries to to distance itself from failed prophecies.
“All of the Lord’s people looked forward to 1914 with joyful expectation. When that time came and passed there was much disappointment, chagrin, and mourning, and the Lord’s people were greatly in reproach. They were ridiculed by the clergy and their allies in particular, and pointed to with scorn, because they had said so much about 1914, and what would come to pass, and their ‘prophecies’ had not been fulfilled”. – Light, 1930. p., 194
Not only did the Watchtower Society believe that 1914 was the date of Armageddon, but the organisation even went full Ministry of Truth (a reference from George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”) and changed the quotation. Below we have the 1908 and the 1937 versions of Studies in the Scriptures Vol.3:
“That the deliverance of the saints must take place some time before 1914 is manifest, since the deliverance of fleshly Israel, as we shall see, is appointed to take place at that time, and the angry nations will then be authoritatively commanded to be still, and will be made to recognize the power of Jehovah’s Anointed. Just how long before 1914 the last living members of the body of Christ will be glorified, we are not directly informed; but it certainly will not be until their work in the flesh is done; nor can we reasonably presume that they will long remain after that work is accomplished. With these two thought in mind, we can approximate the time of the deliverance”.
– Thy Kingdom Come (Studies in the Scriptures Vol.3) (1908) p.228
“That the deliverance of the saints will take place some time after 1914 is manifest, since the deliverance of fleshly Israel, as we shall see, is appointed to take place thereafter, and the angry nations will then be authoritatively commanded to be still, and will be made to recognize the power of Jehovah’s Anointed. Just how long after 1914 the last living members of the body of Christ will be glorified, we are not directly informed; but it certainly will not be until their work in the flesh is done; nor can we reasonably presume that they will long remain after that work is accomplished. With these two thought in mind, we can approximate the time of the deliverance”.
– Thy Kingdom Come (Studies in the Scriptures Vol.3) (1937) p.228
If you’re a person with any insight or perspicacity, you can see how the Watchtower Society has changed its 1914 doctrine over the years.
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The fact is, the timeline was revised and 26 years removed from the timeline:
2 years from Nebuchadnezzar II
16 years from Evil-Merodach
2 years from Nabonidus
6 years from Darius the Mede
Total: 26 years
Because of this, the 70 years that began in year 23, the year of the last deportation ending the 1st of Cyrus does not work. For various reasons, this revised timeline was never corrected.
The original 1st of Cyrus occurs in 455 BCE and the 70-year exile begins in 525 BCE. So the true date for Jerusalem’s fall is 529 BCE. This is now confirmed by RC14 from Rehov which dates year 39 of Solomon, Shishak’s invasion of Israel to 871 BCE, dating the Exodus to 1386 BCE. The return is exactly 931 years later (19 jubilees) and thus should have occurred in 455 BCE (1386 – 931 = 455 BCE). But since the timeline was revised, it shows 537 BCE as the date of the return, some 82 years too early.
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Babylon was destroyed in 539 BCE. It is a confirmed, absolute date agreed upon by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, historians and Archeologists. So it’s a CONFIRMED date. (Babylon The Great Has Fallen p184)
If you use Watchtower only sources which count backwards from the last monarch of Babylon, see what year comes up.
Nabonidus 556 BCE – 539 BCE -last monarch of Babylonian Empire ( Insight Book Volume -1 p 457-458) (Aid to Bible Understanding, Nabonidus p 1195)
Labashi-Marduk 556 BCE reigned for 9 months, succeeded Neriglissar) (Watchtower 1965 1 Jan p29)( Babylon the Great Has Fallen, p184)
Neriglissar 560 – 556 BCE -reigned 4 years, murdered Evil-Merodach (Watchtower 1965 1 Jan p29)( Babylon the Great Has Fallen, p 184)
Evil-merodach 562 – 560 -reigned 2 years, succeeded Nebuchadnezzar (Watchtower 1965 1 Jan p29) (Babylon the Great Has Fallen, God’s Kingdom Rules page 184)
Nebuchadnezzar 605-562 -reigned 43 years (Daniels Prophecy Chapter 4 para 9) (Watchtower 2000, 15th May p 12 para 17)( Insight Book,Volume 2 p 480)
Jerusalem ‘s walls were breached in Nebuchadnezzar ‘s 18th year of ruling (Insight book volume 2, page 481)
Jerusalem was completely destroyed by 19th year. So Nebuchadnezzar started reigning in 605 -18 ( counting 18 years later)
= 587/586 BCE JERUSALEM DESTROYED, NOT 607 BCE.
There cannot be any gaps in this list as there were many DAILY detailed receipts showing transactions totalling tens of thousands in total (House of Egibi) recording the year of each king.
586/7 matches Bible chronology. See various explanations
70 YEARS OF DESOLATION
Jerusalem destroyed in 586 BCE + 70 years =516 BCE
What happened in 516 BCE?
INSIGHT BOOK, PAGE 463 states that Darius’ 6th year began 12 April, 516 BCE
The foundations of Jerusalem were laid but the work was halted before the final completion of the temple IN THE 6TH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF DARIUS. (EZRA 6: 14-16). That was when the 70 years of desolation was finished.
OR
70 YEARS OF EXILE
Nebuchadnezzar took Israel into exile in 605 BCE + 70 Years = 535 BCE
The exiled Jews started their return to Babylon which began in 538 BCE. The large group consisted of children and animals. It would have taken 2-3 years for the large group to return in full which brings us to 535 BCE
or
70 YEARS NATIONS WOULD HAVE TO SERVE FOR BABYLON
Jeremiah prophesied the whole country would become a wasteland and nations would serve King of Babylon 70 years. (Jeremiah 25: 1,2 11)
Babylon’s rule lasted 70 years, from 609 BC when the last Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit II, was defeated in Harran, until 539 BC when the Medo-Persians conquered Babylon.
If Jerusalem wasn’t destroyed in 607, then 1914, Jesus didn’t return nor 1919, the appointment of the faithful and discreet slave and the GB being God’s only spokesman falls apart. Read Deuteronomy 18: 20,22.
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Indeed… Thank you for your use of Watchtower’s own literature to demolish their argument.
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I tried to verify VAT4956 by myself, and as a result I found it suitable for 607 B.C. In particular, the eclipse of 568 B.C., a traditional regiment, is not consistent with the record in VAT4956. This is a conclusive proof. I posted this on my blog.
https://blog.naver.com/gjinzzang
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I’m afraid I can’t read Korean, and the automatic translation brings up gibberish. If you have an English version, I will be able to examine your argument directly.
In any case, I have checked, double-checked, triple-checked and referenced the sky software with the tablet VAT 4956 and you are clearly in the wrong. The tablet in no way supports 607 BCE and I’ve already explained several conclusive reasons in the article, not just one, so it beggars belief that you could be saying that the tablet supports 607. Search the article for these phrases:
– “But even though the eclipse matches, there are several problems with this 588 date”.
– “The Watchtower claims that the eclipse mentioned in VAT 4956 refers not to the one on 4 July 568 BCE”.
…there you’ll find several lines of evidence that 588 and therefore 607 are not supported in the tablet.
In summary, the correct 568 date for the eclipse relies not only on the eclipse data recorded but also on the position of the moon relative to the Taurus constellation (the Bull of Heaven), the position of Saturn relative to Pisces/Pegasus (the Swallow) and the position of Venus and Mercury relative to Saturn and Pisces/Pegasus. In 588, the moon was not in Taurus, Saturn was NOWHERE near the Pisces/Pegasus and Mercury and Venus didn’t join Saturn in Pisces Pegasus.
This alone proves it, as the planets repeat their approximate positions in the sky about once every 18,588 years. But there are other observations that clinch it.
I don’t understand how you could have read the article and still come back with a lie. It’s like finding your fingerprint and DNA on a gun and then claiming that you were not the culprit. This evidence I have presented is so completely and utterly airtight and irrefutable that there’s absolutely zero wiggle-room around it. The skies don’t lie. It is a cosmic fingerprint that is irrefutable.
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Per ‘Torah Discovery Chronology’ volume III of the Moshe Emes series for Torah and science alignment, try 404 BCE so use -403
on 5/22 (May 22nd)
5779-3356= 2423 YA
for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar
and use the ecliptic view, also the map view w/ eclipse tracker
http://skyviewcafe.com/#/calenda
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https://digilander.libero.it/monseppe/
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Un messaggio ai Testimoni di Geova:
Si prega di smettere di postare articoli che pretendono di dimostrare la verità di 607, ma in realtà non lo fanno. Ho dimostrato, senza ombro di dubbio, che Gerusalemme fu distrutta nel 586 aEV. I cieli non mentono.
Fate le vostre ricerche, come ho fatto io. Si prega di leggere l’articolo sopra in DETTAGLIO
prima di rispondere o di commentare.
Potete farlo TUTTI:
1. Scaricate la traduzione del tablet VAT 4956 (sebbene in inglese): http://www.caeno.org/pdf/F019_Translation.pdf
2. Guardate l’elenco delle costellazioni moderne e dei loro equivalenti babilonesi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_star_catalogues
3. Scaricate il software astronomico gratuito: SkyChart 4.0 o SkyMap Pro 11.04 (o se non si desidera o non è possibile di scaricare software sul computer, utilizzare questo website http://skyviewcafe.com/ meno sofisticato, ma altrettanto efficace).
Non voglio ripetermi ancora e ancora … ma, sfortunatamente, devo…
“I CIELI NON MENTONO!”
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