The Watchtower Society and John and Morton Edgar - A2Z.org

SEVENTY YEARS' DESOLATION (PART ID"Thcnt that Itad escaped from the stcord carried he [Nebz~chndnezzar] away to Babylon, where they tverdservants to him and his sons until the reign of the kinydont of Persia: to fulfill the word of the LordBy the nzoz~tl~ of Jercn~ink, until th.e Intad hurl enjoyed her sabbatl~s; for os Zor~g US she Zaydesolate she kept sabbath to f7ilJill threescore and ten years."-2 Cl~rontcles 36: 20, 21.AFEW of our readers have been soinenhat con- are the Greek writers Herodotus (450 B. C.) andfused in their imd~~rstanrlmgg of present-truth Ptolcmy (150 A. D.) and the Chaldean writer Berosuschronology hy the cln~m that it does iiot agree (260 B. C.). Concerning Herodotus as a "historian"with ancient secular lliitory. This carries the inference the facts are as follows :that the chi~onologq- cannot bc corl-cct UI~~CER it is in 'I11 the article on "RIedes" "Smith's Bible Dictionary"agreement tv1tl1 secular-pag:tn li~story and chn.onologg7 says :and that this agrccincnt is desi~able and incilsj~ensal~lc. "Thi~ the clirouologictll tlntes [of Herodotus] are cmprob-Re present home coiisidrrations from ahlch the rcailcr oblc, :~ncl cren contradictory, has been a frequent subjectmay judge t~hctller it is dcslrs1)le to attcnlpt to rely of cm~ii>lnint. . . Receiltly it hns been shown that tlleupon prellistoric pagan records derived Prom ge~ltile whole [Heroclotus] sclle111e of tluleu IS ojttlfcinl, and tllnt"history" and from the inscriptions on Assyrian monu- the wry rlaluecs of the kings, except in a single instance,ilre m~l~istor~cnl.ments.... The Bredran kingdom did not coln-EARLY PAGAN "HISTORY" UNRELIABLEnlence so early as Herodotus intagtned. ... The Deims andPlll.aortes of Herodotus are removed from the list of his-A chmige was made some two hundred years ago from tor~c:~l personages altogetl>er."the ancirnt and true belief in seventy years' desolationDr. Francis Broi\n, D. D., of U~ion Theologicalof the land to sevmty years' captivity. This was doneSeminary, comments thus on the relative accuracy of tlieby ecclesiastics to make tlie Bible record agree withunconscientious Greek "historians" and the writers ofpagall records. and was in thorough harmony with thethe Bible:spirit of comproniise that has possessed ecclesiastici.sm"The Greeks told fairy-tales that entertained their readers,since the time (325 A. D.) when Constantine, nlider but \\-ere largely untlae The Heb~ews, with their nenrerdemon infl uencc. transf orn~ed the independent true nos~tco~~. rind Illore il-eauent memorable contact. had also achurch of cod illto a servile religious departrneilt of >o,~~~re~~ttou.saess and sir11 HI ;~nnallstic writrug 'wlrlch madethe pagan goveranlent-which it is today. It nothing tlieir evirlellce irl 1'P~:lltl t0 tile history of their neighborsto be sul.lrrlsecl tllat a chul.clllal,lty c.oIl,posed largely i"ll)"rtifll t t"~~L"ortl'>-"-''Ass~~iolOg~ : Its Use andAbuse." p. 50.of pagans and delnoii worshipers, diould prefer pagan GUESSES OF l c ~ u ~ ~ ~ ~and ilonoli i~~flucilcecl records to the straiglltforira~(lWllen almost any brt of 18istOry" of the prehistoriOand tmthful records of the Word of God and of Jewishpagan events of the sevc,,tg years is to ite originhistory.it is found to be a guess or conjecture, based by "author-The Pa.Ya11 historical records? especially of date as ities'' (weell-paid guessers) upon some scraps of uncertainearly as the SC\~CU~?. years' desolat~on, are e~trCmeIy tradltioll- The ccclewastlcally-received history of Babyobscl~lc.co~ttmd~ctory, and wellable, so much 50 as h lon tbls period oric-rinated b in a guess by an 'trtuthorfalloutsltlc the domain of history lnto the realm of ity". his appears in the on ~~elshazzar" insurnlisc. guasswork, hearsay, alld conjecture. It ~s upon BfcC]intock & Strong's ''Bibllml CyWedja," and showssuch a seclilar prehistoric basis that the error rests thatt]Ie lmcertain and conflicting tales on wLch W= basedthe ~~elltv yean began nineteen years earlier than originally the now discredited notion of yearsthey actually did."captivity" beginning in 625 B. C. First in the articleWe will ~llustrate the unreliability of early pagan are given the differing and contradictory accounts ofrecords co~icerniiig affairs prior to Cyrus, 536 13. C. Babylon's fall as recorded in the Bible, in Xenophon, aMilman in his "History of the Jews" (Volume 1, page Greek miter (400 B. C.), in Berosue, a native '%is-460) spealcs of "the intricate and ineztricnbls labyrinth tori~lY'7 ad in Herodoh; then "it appear$' so and soof Assynan history and chronology".from the Aesyrian monuments ; and hdya co~tjectureis made by s modern "scholar" (guesser), wh~ch is theuneedaint~ those Pagan records wnnot basis of the present of 'CaUthoritle$j (highcs&be shown better than giving the facts about the sal~rjcd guessers) on the pagan history of the seventysourcesof information. The entire 60-c~lled pagan '%is- year perjod. There are, indee& other quite dSerelltbrf' of ailtl(llkity is a mass of guesses, and furnishes no ancient records, but these are resolutely ruled out orsound basl, for so lmportailt a btep as discred~t~i~g the iglored by the "authorities"-as liable to let the commondivinely-made prophecy and the divinely-recorckd ful- people lnto the fact that the matter is largely a guess.mment of the seventy years' desolatzon. TI: three The history of Babylon, as published by the "authorancientpagan ‘‘historians'' from whom data a1 c taken ities," includes a certain definite list of king4 but 0th183