Talishi wrote:Jeremiah prophesied the Babylonian Vacation would last 70 years. Archaeology says it lasted 49 years. JWs alter history to make it come back out to 70 years by introducing the date 607 BCE as a thing, when nothing of note happened then.
#QUESTION: Why does the date given by Jehovah's Witnesses for the Fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, differ from that given by most historians of 587?
Jehovah's Witnesses have not chosen the date arbitrarily, 607 is based on bible chronology which explicitly states the exile was for 70 years (See 2 Chronicles 36:21, 22, NIV). Since both the bible and secular historians agree that the Jewish exile was ended by 537 counting back from that date we arrive at that date of 607 BCE. We view it as reasonable to favor bible chronology over the available secular sources for the following reasons.
#1 The bible has often been vindicated as to its archelogical detail when the consensus had previously been against it, proving it has a stellar record in this regard.
#2 The bible account of the Fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians were written much closer to those upon which the later date was based (the Babyloniaca, for example was written about 281 BCE) and Ptolemy compliled his list of Babylonian kings some 600 years after the Neo-Babylonian period ended. The bible writer Jeremiah and Daniel on the other hand, were eye witnesses of the events.
#3 Historians who lived close to the time when Jerusalem was destroyed give mixed information about the Neo-Babylonian kings and while the consensus on Ptolemy's list is that it was generally reliable, it's proven omissions mean it cannot be legitimately viewed as a definite historical chronology. See below.
This did not prevent him from making his own additions and interpretations. - Scholar R. J. van der Spek, Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society, page 295 (Commenting on the accuracy of the Neo-Babylonian Priest Berossus, one source for the later date)
In the past Berossus has usually been viewed as a historian [yet] considered as such his performance must be pronounced inadequate. Even in its present fragmentary state the Babyloniaca contains a number of surprising errors of simple fact . . . In a historian such flaws would be damning, but then Berossus purpose was not historical. -- S. M. Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus, page 8.
Regarding Ptolemy
[Ptolemy's canon was] an artificial scheme designed to provide astronomers with a consistent chronology and was “not to provide historians with a precise record of the accession and death of kings. -- Christopher Walker, (Historian at the British Museum)Mesopotamia and Iran in the Persian Period, pages 17-18.
It has long been known that the Canon is astronomically reliable, but this does not automatically mean that it is historically dependable. -- Leo Depuydt, Professor of Egyptology and Assyriology, Brown University
CONCLUSION "The Bible clearly states that there was an exile of 70 years. There is strong [biblical] evidence and most scholars agree that the Jewish exiles were back in their homeland by 537 B.C.E. Counting back from that year would place Jerusalem's destruction in 607 B.C.E. Though the classical historians and the canon of Ptolemy disagree with this date, valid questions can be raised about the accuracy of their writings." Watchtower October 1 p. 31
Detailed articles below
http://www.jehovahsjudgment.co.uk/607/
http://m.wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011736
