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

me WATCH TOWERair". All are doing kingdom work together. The Lord bep~nrsecl for this assurance! The Herald writers are quite11-rong In very nlally of their lnterpretations. They areec-rtainly not safe giiiiies to the Lord's people.There is one str,rl~ge point in connection with the "AStronomicnlCanon of Ptolenry", which list af k~ngs 1s nluchrel~erntetl by the He1 rrld According to this list, Nzbolio-Insqar, said to be Nebuchadneznar, began to re~gn lu 604E C. (some copies say 60.5 B C.). But the name of thekrng who con~~s before th~s 1s spelled practicnlly the same:"Nabopolnssar". There is only a cllKerence of one letter betweenthern, as you will see "Nabo-po-lasqnr" began toreign, according to Ptolemy's 11st. in (225 E. C.. or, moreprobnblg, as some have it, ill 620 B. C. Therefore the 19thyenr after the hcgin~lirig of N:~ho-po-ln+-~'~ regn is 606,or GO7 E. C., the very tl,~te rcqu~i'ecl for the beglnmng of the";r*eat seven t~mc. of the gcntltcsl', encl~ng in Autumn,101-1: A. D. It is qulte pnsrihle, ant1 may even be prob:lhle,th:~t Ptolemy, or rome of 111s i~~terpreters, has mixed upthcse two name3, liames of two rnen who are said to befather and son. Nabo-no-lnssar, the fnther, is very likelymixed up with Nabo-ko-lassar, the son.It is just as likely as not that histor~nns made n mistakehere; and thnt botl~ names are really the names ofonc king only, ancl not two. There is nothing inlprolmblein tliis; for such mistakes are not by auy means infl'eqt~entFor instance, it is through a mlstnke of thic: very kiudthat Ptolemy made another well-known mistake in his llstof kings, nnmely, by rnlxing up the names of two k~ngscalled Xer~es, and Ariaserzer. Ptolemy's cnnon makes amlstake of ten years in tl~e relgn of Serses, saylng thnt hereigned for twenty-one years, ww7hereas reliable historyproves conclusively that Xerses reigned for eleven yearsonly. This is important to notice; for if Serxes drd reigtwenty-one years, and not only ele~en, then the twentiethyear of his successor, that is, Artaxerxw, wo111d then beten years later than we understand it to be. And if Artarerses'twentieth year is ten years later, then Dnnlel's prophecyof the seventy weeks, at the end of sixty-nine ofwhich weeks Messiah was to come, zcotrld not hucc beenfulfilled! But Ptolemy made n mistake here; and rellablehistory, quite apart from the Scriptural requirement. provesthat Ptolemy mas mistaken to the extent of ten yenrs inthe reign of Xerxes, and hence, also, of ten years in thereign of Artaxerxes.This is really more than one, or even two mistakes ofPtolemy, for not only nre his stated years for the reignsof tmo kings ten years wrong each, but the date for thedeilth of the first, and the date for the accession of thesecond, ore also, necessarily wrong. In other words, Ptolemymatle a bad Munder in his history of this period.If Ptolemy made n mistake of ten years during the fifth~~~~~~~y B. C. (he himself lired during the second centuryA. D., or several hundred years later), is It anlaasonableto sny that he made a mistake of twenty-one ye:lrs duringhis history of the seventh century B. C.? The Acraldwriters ask If It IS reasowzbb to suppose that Ptolen~ymade such n mistake. IVell, apparently It is reasonable toEO suppose: for he is now abundantly prored to have madea blunder in his history of the fifth century, when one~vould have expected that he should have been more relinlrle,seein:: it wag about two hundred years nearer to theA D. date.R~rt. as I say, it is not improbable that the interpreter8of Plolemy made this mistake, and nnt in this cnse Ptolemyhlmself. These Inter interpreters, as likely as not, havem~re,l up N:tho-po-lassar and Sabo-Lo-lnssar, just as manyhistorians mlsed zp Xerses and Artaxerxes. Accord~nq toPtol~my's astronomical list, or cnnon, of kings, Nnbopnlncsarbegan his reign in 625, or 626, B. 0.; and his nuir!c.;nthyear of reign then lands in 606 or GO7 B. C. "Seven t~~nes"or 2520 rears from this ended in 1914 A. D, an tun^^^, 1v111chis correct. The Bible demands this, and the B~ble \\.ill havernp 1-enel.ntlon and respect before nny mere profane docnment,hon ever supposecllg accurnte.Then we hnve the esplieit rleclaration of Daniel, the insp~redprr~phet of the Lord, who says: "1 Dnn~el understoodby books the number of the years, whereof the wordof the Lni-(1 came to Jeremial~ the prophet, that he n-ouldaccompJ~sll seventy years in the clesolntion of Jerusnlem".(Doillel 9: 3) The Herald brethren, 11ke the higher critics,say that Pwn~el was all wl-rongl It was uot, they say, seventyyears in the desolat~ons of Jeinsnleni, bill fifty-one yearsonly! "Daniel in the critics' den" again 1 And JInses, themnn of Goc?, snid: "tlncl your c~ties [.Terucnlenl, the cityof the Ituntl] shall lie waste, . . . tl~clt sliall the land enjoy11er sabl).~tlls, \vhile ye be in your enemies' Innd" ; etc AnclJeremioli s:~gs thnt when Jerusrllcm \\.as clestroyed nt thedethronement of Zedekinh, Judnh's last k~ng. then the land(and Jerusalem, the grent clky) would lie desulnte forseventy gears to fz~lflll her sabOat7ts af rat. 811 tlieseScriptures are very plain, and all go to show thnt BrotherRussell's interpretation of this feature of god'^ Plan ofthe Ages mas correct, and thnt such writers as the writersof the Herald are quite mlsleailing.It mas in 1004, or ten years before 1914, that similarviews to those expressed by the ZeraZtE first came forth.So their views are by no meal~s new, but have been seen,nnd refuted, long ago. Ancl Brother Russell himself wasone of tflose who pointedly refuted the wbrong viens nowso boldly brought forunrd by the Ific?ald, nc: if they wereexpressing something stnrtling, and most unesgected newfacts. Tliere is nothing new about them; ant1 they arecertainly not fads.Have you ever noticed that Nebuchadnexzar is sometimesalso called Nebuchad~*zznr? Just as Nnboliolassar mag alsoha\-e Been known as Sahpolnssar. Note the spelll~lq in,say, Ezek~el, and contrast It with that in Daniel. But Jcremiahspells this name both ways. Why this peculiar changeof a letter? Needles to say, the testimony of the GreatPyramid, tlie Lord's "stone w~taess" in \I-l~icli Brother Russellstill declared his implicit faith in his lnst notice of thismonument, in his new preface to Yolnme I11 just about amonth before his death-is quite against the new (7) cl~ronologicalviews of the Herald. But of course the Heraldmiters hare no use for the Pyramid's testimony now. Theyhare throlVn that aside, just ns Brother Henninges of Aus-tr:ll~a did hefore them. and under some!\-lint sin~ilar circumstances.The Grent Pyramid substantiates the vie!\-s heldby Brotl~er Russell bejond all doubt.Why are the Herald nri~erso anxious to discou~ltenancethe cllroilology of Brotller Iiu.sel1, \\-hich is the true clironologyof the B1ble and the test~mony, corroborativp ofthe Pyramid? They desire to throw discred~t on the "clispensational"work now carried on under the \ \ r ~ TOWER'S\ ~ ~ ~supervision. Thnt is the re:Lson. Thex sag, bluntly: "Thereis no evidence flf any new ts-nr:. being cnrried onw. Well,itere IS at len-t on evideic!e that they are tl~emselres en-p ~ e d in ttus Icru5 wrli uvh~cb, in spite of them, is beingcarried on ! "I! illions now living will never d~e !!" Hallelujr~l~!Wlth love in Him as ever,BIorn~ EDG~.ANOTHER HUNGRY HEART FOUNDDEAB BRETHREN :I am writing to you at this time seel;i~i;. infol-mntionconcerning the STUDIES IN THE SCEIPTURES. 1 ha\-e 111 mypossession the first three volumes of thls splendid exTasitionand would like to know if I can get the otherr)