A new future at hand....

An absolutely critical date for the Jehovah's Witnesses is 1914 AD. It is the date when, according to the Jehovah's Witnesses, the time of the Gentiles ended (Watchtower, 5/1/93, page 11) and "Jesus-the heavenly warrior Michael-became King of God's heavenly Kingdom," (Watchtower 11/1/93, page 23). To arrive at this date, the Witnesses take the account in Daniel 4 and apply a 360 day year for each of the seven "times" for a total of 2520 years. They add this date to 607 B.C., their date for the fall of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, and arrive at 1914 A.D., the date when Jesus supposedly returned invisibly in the heavens (The Truth Shall Make You Free, p. 300), the "appointed time of the nations" ended (The Time is at Hand, page 79), and the beginning of the end of the world commenced (Watchtower 11/15/50, page 438). Please consider the following quote.

"This marked time began in the year 1914 (A.D.). In that important year the 'appointed times of the nations,' 2,520 years long, ran out. If we measure back that many years from 1914 we come to the ancient date of 607 B.C. That year was marked for the overthrow of the earthly "throne of Jehovah" and for the destruction of the throne city of Jerusalem and its sanctuary and for the total desolation of the land of the kingdom of Judah." (From the Book, "Your Will," 1958, pp. 309-310, Watchtower CD, emphasis added).

Therefore, the date 607 BC becomes the critical date in question. Was 607 BC the date when Jerusalem fell? No, it wasn't. No Bible scholar and no archaeological scholar holds to that date. The correct date is 586 B.C., not 607 B.C. Therefore, the Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong about 1914 and everything else they attach to that date based on their prophet misunderstanding. Let's verify further that 607 B.C. is the date used by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society before we establish the counter evidence.

http://carm.org/1914-ad-607-bc-586-bc-and-jehovahs-witnesses

interesting

Manny

Following are citations verifying that the correct date for the fall of Jerusalem was not 607 B.C, but 586 B.C.

According to Encyclopedia.com, the Babylonian captivity, is defined as "the period from the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.) to the reconstruction in Palestine of a new Jewish state (after 538 B.C.)."
"You will recall that the Babylonians, under Nebuchadnezzar, after twice laying siege to Jerusalem, finally captured it in 586 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar's army then pillaged the city, destroying the Temple and sending the inhabitants off to exile in Babylonia. ("Biblical Archaeological Review, Biblical Archaelogical Review).
"...Nebuchadnezzar promptly invaded his unhappy country and besieged Jerusalem for a year and a half. In 587 Jerusalem fell and numbers of its inhabitants were carried away captive to Babylonia..." (Unger, Merrill, F., Unger's Bible Dictionary, Moody Press, Chicago, 1966, page 782).
Notice that the year 587 is offered instead of 586. There is sometimes a difference of opinion as to which year is the exact one. Nevertheless, it is obvious that 607 B.C. is not even close.
"586, Jerusalem destroyed and burned (Jer. 52:13b.); people taken captive (52:28-30). (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1982, page 1016)
It is quite clear that the Jehovah's Witness organization is wrong about the 607 B.C. date upon which they place so much of their end times theology. If they are wrong about such a basic event and have not changed their error to match historical fact, how can they be trusted to represent biblical truth? They cannot.

The fact is that they can not change their date of 1914 because they have so much invested in it. They are forced to retain their 607 BC date even though it is in obvious error. To admit they were wrong is to undermine the whole credibility and truth of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. This they cannot do because they are more dedicated to their organization than they are to the truth.

Manny

So the actual date in which the W.T. society used to calculate that 1914 was NOT even correct. So let's give the benefit of the doubt. 607-586 = 21 years difference. So the end of the world should of came in 1893 which makes the prediction even more off and well silly.


Manny

Biblical Dating
The Bible contains no absolute dates, since our calendar was not invented when any part of the Old Testament was written. It is not possible, therefore, to date events directly. However, the Bible does provide many relative dates.
One example can be found at Daniel 1:1 ‘In the third year of the kingship of JehoiAkim the king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and proceeded to lay siege to it.’ Then follows an account of how the holy things in the temple were taken to Babylon, and some prominent Israelites were taken captive; among them Daniel. In Daniel 2:1, we likewise find an event dated in the 2nd year of Nebuchadnezzar.
This was how events were dated in the Biblical times. If we can date the reigns of the Kings, in this case JehoiAkim and Nebuchadnezzar, we can date the events. Any dating therefore requires some independent non-Biblical evidence. Only relative dates can be taken from the Bible itself. To reach actual dates we need an event that is dated both in the bible and in secular history. Using one of these pivotal dates we can use the relative dates of the bible to calculate the actual dates. The one date nobody seems to have a problem with is the capture of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in 538 -BCE

Apparently there is some room for debate but as with most things the majority see the 586-587 date as the most likely

Manny

PS: Also 607 586 does not matter a whole because the 1914 date is bunk anyway.

The Lifespan of Daniel
If one puts the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 there is a major problem with the lifespan of the prophet Daniel as well. Recall that Daniel was exiled to Babylon (3) and completed three years of training. Then in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar he interpreted the dream of the immense image (Daniel 2:1). As a result, Daniel was made ‘ruler over all the jurisdictional district of Babylon and the chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon’ (Daniel 2:48). It would be hard to imagine Daniel was put in such a position as a mere boy. He must have been at least 18 years, and likely older.
Daniel continued to serve in the royal court well into the days of the Medes and Persians (Daniel 10:1). If we are to use the 607 chronology then his interpreting the Dream of the immense image occurred in 624-BCE. This is 86 years before Cyrus conquered Babylon, and since Daniel 10:1 was written in the third year of Cyrus that would make Daniel at least 107 years old, and likely even older. Using the established chronology, he is a much more reasonable 87 years old.


Manny

Beginning of ‘trampling.

The ‘trampling’ on that kingdom of the dynasty of Davidic rulers did not begin with the Roman devastation of the city of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. It began centuries earlier with the Babylonian overthrow of that dynasty in 607 B.C.E. when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and took captive the dethroned king Zedekiah and the land was left desolate. (2Ki 25:1-26; see CHRONOLOGY.) This accorded with the prophetic words directed to Zedekiah at Ezekiel 21:25-27, namely: “Remove the turban, and lift off the crown. This will not be the same. . . . A ruin, a ruin, a ruin I shall make it. As for this also, it will certainly become no one’s until he comes who has the legal right, and I must give it to him.” The one who has “the legal right” to the Davidic crown lost by Zedekiah is demonstrated in the Christian Greek Scriptures to be Christ Jesus, of whom the angel, announcing his future birth, said: “Jehovah God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule as king over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom.”—Lu 1:32, 33.

With Jerusalem’s fall in 607 B.C.E. the Gentile powers exercised domination over the entire earth. The Davidic dynasty and rule suffered interruption, and so Jerusalem, or what it stood for, would continue to be “trampled on” as long as God’s kingdom, as functioning through David’s house, was kept in a low, inoperative condition under the Gentile powers. Observing this connection with rulership Unger’s Bible Dictionary (1965, p. 398) comments: “Consequently Gentiles move on as ‘the nations’ to the end of their stewardship as earth rulers. The termination of this period will be the end of the ‘times of the Gentiles.’ (Luke 21:24; Dan. 2:36-44).”—Compare Eze 17:12-21; also the description of Medo-Persia’s fall at Da 8:7, 20.

Seven Symbolic Times.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s personal experience of the vision’s fulfillment the “seven times” were evidently seven years, during which he became mad, with symptoms like those of lycanthropy, abandoning his throne to eat grass like a beast in the field. (Da 4:31-36) Notably, the Biblical description of the exercise of world domination by the Gentile powers is presented through the figure of beasts in opposition to the holy people of God and their “Prince of princes.” (Compare Da 7:2-8, 12, 17-26; 8:3-12, 20-25; Re 11:7; 13:1-11; 17:7-14.) Concerning the word “times” (from Aramaic iddan), as used in Daniel’s prophecy, lexicographers show it here to mean “years.” (See Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Leiden, 1958, p. 1106; A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, by Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 1980, p. 1105; Lexicon Linguae Aramaicae Veteris Testamenti, edited by E. Vogt, Rome, 1971, p. 124.) The duration of a year as so used is indicated to be 360 days, inasmuch as three and a half times are shown to equal “a thousand two hundred and sixty days” at Revelation 12:6, 14. (Compare also Re 11:2, 3.)

“Seven times,” according to this count, would equal 2,520 days. That a specific number of days may be used in the Bible record to represent prophetically an equivalent number of years can be seen by reading the accounts at Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6. Only by applying the formula there expressed of “a day for a year” to the “seven times” of this prophecy can the vision of Daniel chapter 4 have significant fulfillment beyond the day of now extinct Nebuchadnezzar, as the evidence thus far presented gives reason to expect. They therefore represent 2,520 years.

It is a historical fact worth noting that, on the basis of the points and evidence above presented, the March 1880 edition of the Watch Tower magazine identified the year 1914 as the time for the close of “the appointed times of the nations” (and the end of the lease of power granted the Gentile rulers). This was some 34 years before the arrival of that year and the momentous events it initiated. In the August 30, 1914, edition of The World, a leading New York newspaper at that time, a feature article in the paper’s Sunday magazine section commented on this as follows: “The terrific war outbreak in Europe has fulfilled an extraordinary prophecy. For a quarter of a century past, through preachers and through press, the ‘International Bible Students’ . . . have been proclaiming to the world that the Day of Wrath prophesied in the Bible would dawn in 1914.”

The events that took place from and after the year 1914 C.E. are well-known history to all, beginning with the great war that erupted, the first world war in mankind’s history and the first to be fought over the issue, not of the domination of Europe alone, nor of Africa, nor of Asia, but of the domination of the world.—Lu 21:7-33; Re 11:15-18;

Can you explain the difference between 607 and 586BC ? Also if you choose the 607 date it causes problems with the age of Daniel ?



Manny